Murder Under The Kissing Bough: (Auguste Didier Mystery 6) (22 page)

The door of Cranton’s was flung open as on the wings of the wind came the sound of Big Ben chiming
in the twentieth century. Maisie kissed Auguste on the cheek. ‘Happy next hundred years, Auguste.’

‘And you, Maisie, and you.’ His eyes blurred. What would they hold, for him, for Tatiana, for mankind?

After the chimes ceased, the sound of cheering, and of thousands of voices singing God Save Our Gracious Queen filled the air, as Rose came through the door of Cranton’s Hotel.

Before him, resplendent to greet the new century, were Thérèse von Bechlein in maroon lace over silk, a bertha at her neck, Marie-Paul Gonnet, a gawkish bird of paradise for once in bright green taffeta that did nothing for her sallow complexion, the Pembrey girls in blue and white, Gladys Guessings in a pink taffeta dress with feathers, Colonel Carruthers, Major Dalmaine, Gaston de Castillon, Sir John Harnet and Thomas Harbottle immaculately penguined in tails; Eva Harbottle stood close to her husband in bright yellow as though determined now to be noticed. Bella, her red hair piled high in curls upon her head, and wearing a simple primrose-coloured gown by Worth, overshadowed them all.

Rose’s eye ran briefly over the faces that greeted the first dark stranger of the twentieth century. One was a murderer, and would-be assassin.

God save the Queen. And God save her son, thought Auguste soberly. Pray God he would have more than two and a half days to live.

‘This Fancelli,’ Rose wasted no time in recriminations, ‘did he seem eager or reluctant to go? You see my drift?’

Auguste did. If Fancelli were indeed the murderer and assassin, and was acting on his own, he would no doubt be eager at this stage to seize any opportunity of removing himself from police scrutiny. On the other hand, if he were a lone operator, why should he come to Cranton’s in the first place? Why not stay well away from any scrutiny? Yet if he had an accomplice in the hotel, one of the guests, surely he would not wish to depart before the crime and be out of touch with his mentor. Or would he? Auguste thought back carefully. A sudden and unpleasant thought.

Could it have been that Fancelli had been deliberately provoking him throughout, intentionally using tactics – not to mention ingredients – that would induce an outburst so that he could leave without arousing suspicion? That his use of Mrs Marshall’s coralline pepper was merely, like the Duchess in Mr Carroll’s story of Alice, to annoy? Worse, to
mock
? Auguste’s self-esteem received a severe buffet. He, Auguste Didier,
maître chef
, had been
mocked
? Had it come to this? He braced himself to face facts. Even the greatest of cooks must one day lay down their ladle. The secret was to know when. He tried to reply to Rose’s question with dignity.

‘I think it possible it suited Fancelli to leave. The
business was arranged. The hare can go to ground.’

‘Then this hare’s got to be jugged again, and quickly. And I’m told young Nash has slipped the coop again. The kitchen can look after itself today.’

Auguste gave an anguished yelp. Look after itself? No kitchen looked after itself. Even Mrs Rose would know that. It needed loving protection and guidance. But of course Egbert was right. Even dinner must come second at the moment. The Baroness had already proved her cooking ability and she might superintend, if she had no objection, every now and again, and, with a few (very brief) moments’ overall inspection given to it from time to time by himself, surely John, the underchef, might cope? He was no
maître chef
, but then these were no ordinary times. If John chose simple straightforward recipes, and resisted the temptation to add exotic sauces and to experiment, the guests might survive without starvation.

‘Very well, Egbert,’ Auguste told him bravely. ‘I will inform John. If I go now he will still have time to give proper attention to the menus for the day.’

‘Don’t get tempted to taste the soups while you’re down there,’ Rose said warningly.

Useless to try to pretend that he had had no intention of doing other than having the briefest of words with John. ‘Very well, Egbert,’ he repeated.

He hurried from the office undecided whether to seek out the Baroness or to descend to the kitchen first. The matter was, however, settled for him. As he came into the entrance hall he stopped short in amazement. An altercation was in progress between a lady most unlike any guests that Cranton’s had ever entertained and the doorkeeper, expressed in both verbal and physical terms, as she shouldered her mountainous way past her opponent through the swing doors with all the determination of Wyatt Earp to shoot from the hip.
Her height did little to detract from the huge, bulky figure wrapped in two coats, one worn frontwards, the other backwards, since neither fitted, big lace-up boots, and a tweed cap on her head.

‘Can I help you, madam?’ Auguste asked feebly, as Perkins, who had been temporarily set back by a swing door rebounding forcefully on him, rushed after her.

‘I’m here to see Egbert. Tell him Ma’s here.’

Ma Bisley’s large feet trod the thinnest of lines between the lesser criminal fraternity and the police, both trusting in her ability to remain on it. Her own confidence never wavered, so nor did theirs. It was tacitly agreed by her supporters on both sides that serious crime was equally bad for both, and that both therefore had a common interest in combating it. Thus it was also tacitly understood that the Yard would not burrow into the lesser crimes of the East End more than was strictly necessary in the course of their inquiries, this being left to the province of the Metropolitan Police, which was counted as fair enough by the lesser villains of the east and west of London.

Rose had become a veritable Nelson, his blind eye working as hard as ever did Nelson’s at the Nile, and for their part, those picking up an honest living by petty crime were anxious not to be seen harbouring villains that Rose might be after. Occasionally conflicts of interest were adjudicated on by Ma with stern and impartial standards. The West End seldom had the honour of welcoming Ma in person, her bulk making her prefer to stay at home, a Mycroft, not a Sherlock. When she stirred, the criminal world stirred with her.

‘Hoped I’d find yer ’ere.’ Ma Bisley panted in to Rose’s sanctum, brushing aside such mere impediments as police constables. ‘Got some news for you. One of my runners,’ she told Rose. ‘’E’s found out who got
that body you wanted to know about away from ’ere and over the bridge.’

‘Who?’ Rose rapped out.

‘This geezer got a new shirt, see, and socks. Joe got suspicious.’ She glowed with pride on behalf of her underling.

‘Who, Ma?’ repeated Rose.

‘Can’t tell you, you know that, Egbert. Got to protect me sources. We’ll make sure you get ’im when it’s necessary. It was a chap he helped. Not English, though he didn’t say much.’

‘Right, Ma.’ Rose clapped on his bowler hat. ‘Sounds as if it’s Fancelli all right, doesn’t it, Auguste? Got runners in Soho, have you, Ma?’

A broad grin crossed her face. ‘You know me, Egbert. More runners than a bean-tinning factory.’

‘Then a-hunting we will go, Ma. Urgent-like.’

The horse looked round indignantly as Ma Bisley’s bulk sank into the growler, after being heaved up by Rose, Auguste and the driver pushing together, and was with some difficulty persuaded by its driver to begin the journey to Soho. Cities, Auguste decided, were much the same anywhere, as the growler left the luxuries of Shaftesbury Avenue and turned into the overcrowded inner streets of the parish of Soho.

Left, then right, and left again, narrow streets, many of the ground floors turned into shops now, only dark doorways indicating the one-room tenements that lay behind the façade, with even now families living – and often dying – as many as eight to a rat-infested room.

‘Not that you ever see eight,’ Rose told Auguste. ‘They usually have a system going that at a knock on the door half of them scoot to another room, ’case the rent goes up.’

‘You hope to find Fancelli in Soho?’ asked Auguste.

‘We’ve checked the restaurant you said he worked at – they’ve never heard of him.’

Auguste blushed. That he could have been so foolish! When so much depended on Cranton’s Christmas chef, he of all people had trusted that Fancelli had indeed been in the kitchens when he had eaten at the restaurant before Christmas.

Ma Bisley cast a kindly eye on the Inspector’s recruit.

‘I’m arter hinformation,’ she told him. ‘What with all the restaurants here, and the casual work, a feller like Fancelli can disappear for months, and no one the wiser. ’Cept me,’ she told him matter-of-factly, resting her arms on her gamp umbrella. ‘Only two places he can be hiding out, ’ere or Leather Lane, and this being closer to –’ she paused and winked – ‘the place hin which you are interested, Hinspector, I reckon we’ll be trying here first. I’ve got me runners here.’

‘What are these runners?’ Auguste asked, puzzled, his mind reverting to beans.

‘Ma’s a laundress, Auguste. Takes in for hotels all over London, farms it out to her ladies.’

‘I keeps me hand in too,’ Ma Bisley announced with pride. ‘Take you, for instance, those trousers. They’re English, but not English.’ She ran a sharp eye over Auguste. ‘I’d say Redfern of Paris. Now that shirt, that
is
English. And very new. Yet you ain’t new over here, that’s for sure. All new save the unmentionables and they’re the best. Trying to impress, eh? And that weskit. Fancy but not too fancy. Got a new job, ’ave you? Egbert taken you on? Nah, not with that weskit. You was at the hotel. Guest? Nah. Manager, and new to it. So, what were you doing before?’ She shook her head regretfully. ‘I’d have to look at your underwear to tell your trade.’

‘Madame, I—’ he began heatedly, only to hear her
bellow of laughter and even Egbert allowing himself a smile.

Ma leaned over and rapped the driver on the shoulder with her umbrella. ‘This’ll do, young man. We don’t need to tell the Lord Mayor where we’re going.’

The Lord Mayor would be unlikely to be greatly interested in this old decaying house, thought Auguste.

Ma clambered down. ‘You two stay ’ere,’ she commanded. ‘’E won’t want to be compromised by a couple of toffs like you, one of ’em shouting nark from ’ere to ’Yde Park.’

Her bulk disappeared into the distance, turned a corner and vanished from view.

‘Tailoring, tenements and tarts is all you find here,’ said Rose. ‘Not much of a life.’

Auguste agreed, although the restaurants, poor though they looked, held a certain interest. There was a smell, an indefinable smell, that held promise.

Ma returned five minutes later. ‘Leather Lane, young man,’ she told the driver grandly, after the decanting process had been reversed and she was once more seated. ‘’E’s not ’ere,’ she told Rose. ‘’E was, but ’e ain’t. Ain’t been seen since the summer.’

The driver took one look at the hordes swarming in Leather Lane and refused to go further. Selecting the least villainous of the bambinos playing their own version of hopscotch, he ensured the safety of his vehicle and horse in the time-honoured way, and disappeared into a public house.

Ma Bisley, with Rose on one side, Auguste on the other, waddled into the maelstrom of the Italian quarter at the far end of the Lane. Noise and smells assailed their senses. Smells from the ice-cream makers and roast chestnut vendors, intent on selling their wares, the latter doing a better trade than the former on this raw January day, and noise from the chatting women
surrounding the old clothes stalls, dressed as brightly as for the Neapolitan sun. Children dived in among the crowds, shouting, squealing, intent on their own business. The sound of ‘The Lost Chord’ ground out on a piano organ emanated from the hiring company, where late traders bartered for cheap daily rates now that part of the day was spent, with monkeys on their shoulders, or children caught by the hand. Everyone here had his purpose in life, it seemed, even the women battling with such determination in the Piggy Wiggy porkshop. Here was none of the restless unemployment of Soho. If they could not work, why then they would dance or sing.

In the midst of this exoticism, Ma Bisley stood out, unmistakably English, unmistakably powerful. As she rapped on a door, one or two even fell silent to watch. Foreign communities like this were tolerated provided they kept the rules. And Ma Bisley’s summonses fell into this category. No serious crime here, so Ma was safe. Only further east were her doings shrouded in secrecy from the casually curious.

Nevertheless, when the door was opened, a muttered exclamation was heard, and a hand shot out to suggest she and her escorts should enter. The short, bearded, dark-eyed Italian peered at them nervously in the narrow corridor, smells of Neapolitan sauce wafting interestingly down the stairs. Oregano, was it not? Not like the herbs of Provence – a subtle difference. Auguste pondered on this entrancing problem, sniffing again. One Giulio who spoke
Inglese
, they were told with some pride, appeared, a younger version of his father, minus the beard.

‘Fancelli, Antonio Fancelli,’ said Rose. ‘Know him, do you?’

A hesitation, a discussion in rapid Italian, which Auguste only partly followed, a wary eye on Ma Bisley.

‘Yis,’ declared Giulio. ‘We know him.’

‘Where is he? Seen him in the last day or two, have you?’

‘No.’ The answer came quickly, but not too quickly, Rose judged.

‘Before Christmas.’ The signor was anxious to help. Fancelli lodged with a family in Little Bath Street and helped in the butcher’s shop, Giulio amplified.

The family, when visited, confirmed the story. Equally anxious to help, or at least to avoid the wrath of Ma Bisley, the wife showed them the room where he had slept. ‘With Rudolfo,’ she told them. ‘And Andrea. And Giulietta of course.’ He had a bed of his own, she told them with pride. This was no mean lodging. A rough pallet lay still untenanted in the corner.

‘Belongings?’

‘He took them all at Christmas.’

‘But the job was only for twelve days,’ said Rose to Auguste.

‘’E say not coming back.’

‘It fits,’ said Rose gloomily. ‘He wouldn’t be retracing his steps after he’d made his attempt on the Prince’s life. But it doesn’t help.’

‘Where would he go if he were trying to hide away?’ asked Auguste in halting Italian. ‘If he had committed a big crime?’

There was an outburst of indignation at the idea that any Italian might commit a major crime, which required a few moments to sort out and concluded only with Antonio’s apologetic: ‘Fancelli is a butcher by trade.’

Auguste pursed his lips. To think that he had tolerated Fancelli’s presence in Cranton’s kitchen for one day, let alone allowed him to stay for a week.

‘Perhaps he go to Smithfield.’