Murder Makes an Entree (26 page)

‘No, sir. Yes, sir,’ mumbled Stitch, a question mark rearing itself out of the blue over that promotion. ‘What did I do, sir?’

‘You told me, Stitch, that the groom who stole those bonds was dead.’

‘That’s right, sir.’

‘What you did not tell me, Twitch,’ Rose didn’t correct his error, ‘was that the groom was not just dead, but murdered.’

‘Yes, but that was in France, sir,’ Twitch pointed out, aggrieved, as though that far-off place should not affect his career.
‘And it was years ago. Does it make any difference?’

‘Oh, it makes a difference all right. Get the files out in the office, Stitch. We won’t be retiring yet awhile. I’ll be along
in five minutes.’

Stitch, crestfallen, departed, and Rose sank down in a chair. ‘After a stiff whisky and soda,’ he added to Auguste, summoning
the waiter.

‘You get used to seeing things around,’ he explained. ‘My fault entirely. I’ve seen that French report on unsolved crimes
come through so many times, I know it backwards – and forgot all about it. I remembered the story of the
necklace because that was a new addition to the list. Forgot the others because they’d been around so long. Groom murdered
by wife thought to be English. Poison suspected. Atropine.’

Auguste was no longer sleepy.

‘Was there mention of a wife in Sir Thomas’s report of the theft? Did Sir Thomas—?’

Rose held his hand up. ‘Wait a minute. It’s been a long day.’ The whisky and soda arrived and Rose took a deep drink. He put
the glass down half empty. ‘The wife’s name was Elizabeth, twenty-six years old at the time. Maiden name on the marriage certificate
was Creasy. Married in ninety in France. Probably met her out there. It would be all too neat if she was in Sir Thomas’s household
too, but I’ve spoken to Miss Throgmorton who doesn’t remember anyone else being involved, and Sir Thomas didn’t report an
accomplice either—’

‘Can I speak to you, sir?’ A nervously correct Stitch was drawn up to attention by the side of the whisky and soda.

Rose looked up resignedly. ‘What is it Stitch?’

It’s Inspector Naseby, sir, he’s just telephoned. Those bottles in the cupboard he took. One was laudanum right enough; the
other had solution of atropine in it. He wants you to arrest Mr Didier.’ So abject was Stitch that even this good news did
not enliven his miserable face.

‘The trouble with Naseby is,’ Rose said viciously, ‘that he don’t know proof from prog.’

Auguste stiffened, more at Rose’s use of such a derogatory word for cuisine than for fear of arrest.

‘I’d like to see him stand up at the Old Bailey with a case dependent on two bottles in an unlocked cupboard in a kitchen
open to all and sundry,’ Rose continued.

Auguste did not share his wish. He could all too clearly see Naseby closing in like an avenging nemesis.

‘And sir –’ bleated Stitch, shifting from foot to foot.
‘There’s someone to talk to you and Mr Didier.’

‘It can wait till I’ve finished this drink,’ said Rose firmly.

‘I don’t think so, sir,’ said Stitch humbly. Not quite as humble as Uriah Heep, but still a sight worth seeing.

As they entered the office, a familiar figure turned towards them.

It was Heinrich Freimüller.

‘I vish,’ he said heavily, ‘to confess to the murder of Sir Thomas Throgmorton and Mr James Pegg.’

Sergeant Stitch advanced purposefully towards Heinrich, but Rose motioned him to stop. ‘Sit down,’ he told Heinrich curtly.
‘I want to know why. I want to know how.’

Heinrich sat stiffly on his chair; he cleared his throat and embarked stolidly on his story: ‘I put the poison in the soup,
as I serve it to Sir Thomas. This is simple. Mr Pegg, I think, does not see me, because I am very careful. Afterwards when
the dishes come back to the kitchen, I put some poison in the entrée dish – so that no one suspects the soup,’ he explained
carefully. ‘But later I find I have to kill Mr Pegg, for he did observe me. I think I will not use atropine; if it worked
immediately I would be suspect. I have some laudanum, however, for medicine, which contains opium. This will make sure that
Mr Pegg will be drowsy when he enters the water and will drown when he swims further out. If he does not drown, I will try
again. I put the laudanum in his coffee. This too is easy – I pick the cup up and hand it to him. No one remarks on it. Why
should they? Later, I put the bottles in Herr Didier’s cupboard. For this I apologise.’ He bowed stiffly in Auguste’s direction.
‘I did not think anyone would suspect Herr Didier.’ Auguste looked slightly mollified.

‘I’d like to know—’ Rose began, but Heinrich was in full flow and continued in the same unemotional voice: ‘Mr Pegg swam out,
and he was drowned. I stood in the less deep water and watched him. I obtain the atropine from the Embassy stables,’ he added.

‘Tell me again. Slowly,’ said Rose firmly.

‘Vy?’ demanded Heinrich, puzzled. ‘I tell you that I have killed Mr Pegg and Sir Thomas.’

‘Just how did you manage to get this atropine from the stables? Not usual for a cook to wander round the stables, is it?’
Rose remembered Stockbery Towers and its rigid hierarchies of outdoor and indoor staff.

‘I take them out food for a picnic. I find the atropine there, unregarded in a corner. It is an old bottle. I remember it
and it gives me the idea.’

‘Convenient,’ remarked Rose. ‘So you put it in the soup and then you handed the plate to Sir Thomas.’ He thought for a moment.
‘Mr Didier, ask Mr Multhrop for a few of his plates, would you?’

Mr Multhrop viewed the prospect of his plates disappearing into his lost office with great suspicion. ‘You won’t do anything
to them, will you?’ he enquired anxiously.

Resisting the temptation to inform Multhrop that he would smear them with atropine and slide them back into the kitchens unobserved,
Auguste gravely assured him that they would be completely safe under police control.

‘Now, Stitch,’ said Rose, ‘you be Pegg. Herr Freimüller, show us how you managed it.’

Heinrich awkwardly and self-consciously held the soup bowl in his left hand while Stitch distastefully poured imaginary soup
into it. If this was reconstruction of the crime, he was not impressed. Heinrich extracted an imaginary lump of poison from
a pocket and secreted it in his large hand, dropping it into the bowl while Stitch, by a great feat of inventiveness, was
wheeling the imaginary trolley onwards.

It was at this moment that the crime became vividly real for Auguste, revolted that his soup – albeit only Dickens’s mutton
broth – was being used for this terrible purpose. Could any of his pupils so have abused their calling? he
asked himself. He could not bring himself to believe it.

‘What would you have done if Sir Thomas had refused the soup and you were forced to pass the plate to someone else?’

Heinrich hesitated. ‘I had asked him,’ he said simply after a moment.

‘Any particular reason you decided to murder Sir Thomas?’ Rose asked ironically.

‘Oh yes,’ Heinrich said more confidently. ‘
Herr Inspektor
, I kill him because of an old quarrel. I am not a clever man, and I like cooking. My family do not approve, for they think
I should be ambassador, not work in his kitchens.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘I was a student many year ago at the University of
Heidelberg. I met there Sir Thomas; he was just Thomas Throgmorton then. I did not like him. We quarrelled over an affair
of honour and fought a duel. It is the custom, you know, in Germany to obtain scars in such honourable contests. This was
not that kind of duel. We were fighting in earnest. Sir Thomas won, just; I was wounded, almost killed. I am a clumsy man
–’ he glanced at his broad fingers – ‘I am not good at fighting with swords. He took the lady, but he did not marry her. I
discover years later that he abandoned her and broke her heart. She had killed herself and I vowed that Sir Thomas Throgmorton
would pay. I have never married. I come to England and I work at the Embassy. I have almost forgotten about Throgmorton, for
time passes and though old wounds may not heal, they close over. Then, suddenly, I hear the name of Sir Thomas Throgmorton.
It must be the same man. We are to cook a banquet at Broadstairs for him. This is my opportunity to avenge my Greta. But how?
I cannot fight a duel now, then I think of poison, and of the atropine in the stables. I bring it with me just in case. But
I will give my enemy a chance.’

‘Here comes Mr Datchery,’ murmured Rose.

Heinrich looked puzzled. ‘
Nein
, only the two of us were present. I see Sir Thomas before dinner on the Saturday evening. I remind him who I am. We quarrel
again. He insults me and I know I have to kill him. Just as the duel used to be our customary method for such disputes, so
now I will use the tools of my trade. I will use the food he eats to kill him.’

Auguste shuddered at this heresy. He could not believe it.

Rose regarded Heinrich noncommittally for a few moments. ‘Why did you decide to confess?’ he shot at him.

Heinrich blinked, taken aback. ‘Because,’ his eyes flickered to Auguste who was staring at him in suppressed rage at what
he saw as personal betrayal, ‘I wished to spare further embarrassment to my colleagues. And to Mr Didier.’ Auguste did not
look grateful for this consideration.

‘What do you think, Auguste?’ Rose asked wearily as Sergeant Stitch disappeared with Heinrich to Broadstairs police station,
the clock chiming midnight.

‘What do I think?’ exploded Auguste. ‘I think he did not do it. Poison food?
Never
.’

‘My doubts are somewhat different,’ Rose said drily. ‘In my experience murderers who confess are longing to tell you why they
did it. Eager to justify themselves, so they tell you that first. They don’t go into a long litany explaining exactly how
they did it, or not till later anyway. But someone who was confessing to a murder he hadn’t committed might feel he had to
explain the mechanics first.’

Auguste was still fuming, however, on the matter of adulterated soup. ‘My friend Freimüller is a chef, and he loves his art.
I do not think it possible he would ruin food with poison. Can you imagine Mr Dickens using pages of his manuscript to start
a fire? Can you imagine Michelangelo pushing over “La Pieta” to crush a foe? Or Mr Steinway using piano wire to strangle an
enemy? The artist does not use his own work for evil purposes.’

‘He says he did it, he had reason to do it and that sounded genuine enough. Real emotion there. And he could have done it.
That will be enough for the Yard.’ Rose looked at Auguste squarely: ‘I don’t have any choice other than to charge him. So
if we’re right, we haven’t much time to lose.’

‘At least we know who Mrs Figgis-Hewett’s Datchery was. Remember she said Sir Thomas had told her Datchery had returned?’

‘Now he’s our Datchery as well. The joker in the pack. I suppose,’ Rose added hopefully, ‘this Mr Datchery didn’t murder Edwin
Drood himself, did he?’

‘No,’ said Auguste sadly. ‘Most people do not believe so. He is a device to help solve the murder.’

‘Let’s hope it works for us too,’ said Rose grimly.

Auguste walked back to Blue Horizons, tired, his mind in turmoil. Everything fitted; the case should be over, yet like a soufflé
that failed to rise, this dénouement was soggy, unsatisfying.

Sid opened the door into the house, which seemed bleak and unwelcoming as Auguste walked in, no delicious scents emanating
from the kitchens. No one had the heart for cooking that evening. No one else was around; they were either in bed or still
out. Sid whistled when he saw Auguste’s face.

‘You look like the broken-hearted milkman, me old china. Wot’s Polly Perkins been doin’ to you?’

‘Alas, it is not Polly Perkins, Sid, whoever that lady might be. I only wish it were an affair of the heart. This is a night
made for lovers, not for murder.’

Sid’s face was suddenly serious. ‘There’s not many of us, Mr Didier. It’ll be cleared soon.’

‘Herr Freimüller has confessed to the murders,’ Auguste told him slowly.

‘’Im? Blimey!’ Sid stared. ‘Now you does surprise me.
Still, he wouldn’t’ve confessed if he ’adn’t dunnit, would he? No one would, stands to reason.’

‘And he had good reason to kill Sir Thomas,’ Auguste said absently, his tired brain trying to grapple with an elusive thought
that strayed through his mind, something to do with Edith, or with Mr Multhrop. Or was it something Sid had just said?

‘Tell me again what you said as I came in, Sid,’ he said eagerly.

‘The ol’ broken-hearted milkman?’

‘No, you added something.’

‘Polly Perkins?’ offered Sid. ‘Nothing else, me old china.’

‘
China
. That’s it.’

‘China plate – me old mate. Rhyming slang.’

But Auguste was no longer listening. The poison that killed Sir Thomas was not in any of the food. It was on the china. It
was as simple as that. To Sid’s indignation, Auguste hugged him in true French fashion.

‘Sid, you are indeed my old mate,’ he assured him gratefully. ‘In fact, on this occasion, you are everybody’s old mate.’

The simplicity of the evening, however, had vanished by morning. What had seemed straightforward was now revealed as complex,
as Auguste mulled it over. The atropine was in crystal form. True, the crystals were colourless, but they were large, not
small. How had they not been seen? He himself had inspected the china and table before the dinner commenced. If the crystals
were already in bowls or on the plates before the food was added, they would have been obvious, if not to him then certainly
to the eater. True, the soup – or indeed the entrée – would have melted the crystals, but they would have been seen before
that. And did he not remember that the analyst, according to Egbert, had remarked that atropine required quite a lot of hot
water
to dissolve it? Would the sauce in the entrée have been sufficient? Or even the soup, come to that. The crystals dissolved
in alcohol much more easily, but surely any liquid placed in a glass dish beforehand would have been obvious? Yet it still
might prove the answer. His thoughts came back to one person. If only he could see just how, and why, it had been done.

One by one his pupils descended to breakfast. Alfred was first to remark on the absentee. ‘Where’s old Heinrich?’ he enquired.
‘Not up yet?’

‘I am afraid he will not be taking breakfast with us today,’ said Auguste.

‘He hasn’t been murdered, has he?’ asked Algernon, alarmed.

Emily dropped her egg spoon and screamed.

‘No,’ said Auguste hastily, one eye on Emily, ‘but he has confessed to the murders.’

Emily’s scream subsided into a low moan. Alice rushed to her, herself pale with shock. ‘Have you some smelling salts, Mr Didier?’
she cried indignantly. ‘The poor girl has had a terrible blow. You know how friendly she is with Mr Freimüller.’

‘Some camomile tea,’ suggested Auguste weakly, for once at a loss.

‘Stronger,’ said Alice scathingly, fixing him with a steely eye of English determination. Brandy and smelling salts appeared
from different directions.

‘Old Heinrich murdered Sir Thomas?’ repeated Alfred, bewildered, realisation coming late. ‘Why?’

‘Revenge for an old quarrel years ago over a woman.’

Emily broke into loud gasping sobs.

‘I think I’d better take her upstairs,’ said Alice firmly.

Auguste felt ostracised by the indignant glares that were directed at him, as though by breaking the news he shared responsibility.

‘We’re down to four,’ observed Algernon brightly, now reduced to all-male company.

Alfred looked at him disdainfully. ‘I don’t think that’s the right way to look at it, Peckham.’

‘What is the right way, when one of your number ensures one of the others kicks the bucket?’

This question baffled Alfred.

‘Nah,’ said Sid, suddenly intervening. ‘I don’t see old Heinrich as a poisoner. A German spy, yes, and Pegg his English agent.
Yes.’ He’d been reading the works of William Le Queux. ‘Poison? Nah.’

‘Why should he lie about it?’ enquired Algernon.

‘Perhaps he’s one of those eccentrics,’ offered Alfred, ‘who confess to crimes because they were there at the time.’

‘Perhaps.’ said Auguste.

‘Can we all go home tomorrow?’ Alfred continued hopefully. ‘Now that it’s over?’

‘I do not believe so,’ replied Auguste. ‘I think it may be by no means all over.’

By the time Auguste arrived at the Imperial, Rose had already been in action for several hours. Twitch had been despatched
to London to visit the German Embassy and its stables. Naseby had been given charge of a subdued Heinrich.

‘You’ll be leaving today,’ said Naseby, trying to keep a query out of his voice. ‘Now that we’ve got the murderer – or so
you say,’ he added bitterly, still resenting the loss of Didier in his cells.

‘No,’ replied Rose simply. ‘Soon but not yet.’ Naseby’s face fell. ‘Too many loose ends,’ explained Rose kindly.

As far as Naseby was concerned all the loose ends had been tied into the neat little granny knots he always relied on, and
for the life of him he couldn’t see what Rose considered loose. But he wasn’t going to ask him.

‘You’ll be going then, Inspector Rose,’ asked Mr Multhrop happily, ‘now you have the murderer in custody?’

‘Not yet,’ Rose informed him drily. ‘One or two details to sort out.’

Mr Multhrop subsided. He should have known he couldn’t be so lucky.