by M. J. Carter
“Whig or radical?” I asked.
“I’m sure I do not know—hardly my business.”
“Well, they were both poisoned by strychnine,” I said, reflecting on the fact that half an hour before, I had barely heard of it. “In my opinion, the club must be closed.”
“But we cannot, it is impossible! The club’s reputation. The banquet!” He began to wring his hands again.
“Three men dead, Mr. Scott. Another at death’s door. I’d say the club’s reputation will be ruined if you do not.”
“It is a matter for the committee,” he blustered.
“Have you sent to Lord Marcus?”
“I was about to. I am sure he will come as soon as he hears.”
“I urge you not to delay. You must inform the families of the dead man and that of his sick friend, too. And Mr. Wakley must be summoned to examine the body and, this time, he must be paid. And I will require a list of all the diners in the Coffee Room last night, and where they sat. In due course, we shall probably have to contact them.”
At this, his expression—previously aghast—became distinctly mulish.
“Have you summoned the police?”
“I rather hoped that you might manage it so that it was not immediately necessary.”
“What magic do you expect me to conjure? Another man is dead,” I said. “You will have to do it, Mr. Scott.”
Scott began gloomily to shift papers back and forth upon his desk, to no discernible effect.
“Have you got all that?” I said, trying to rein in my impatience.
“I am sure I will remember,” he said.
“If it is too much, I am sure Mr. Percy could spare one of his clerks?” I could not resist.
“No, indeed, I will manage,” he said curtly, with a forced smile.
Then I introduced my newly arrived servant, Maguire, and requested lodging for him. Scott barely noticed Blake.
• • •
THE KITCHENS had an uneasy, distracted yet foreboding air. The scents of lye, chloride of lime and vinegar had replaced the aromas of stocks and roasts. Everywhere, kitchen maids and apprentices were gloomily scrubbing and wiping. The poultry kitchen’s game shelves had been cleared of birds, stew pans that had formerly bubbled with stocks were empty. New deliveries were stacked up in great towers, but no one paid them any mind. By the scullery there were three vast sacks full of slabs of cooked meats, crushed vegetables, half-finished desserts. Mr. Gimbell stood by, holding a vast, steaming cup of coffee in his fist and perspiring freely as his band of scullery maids and boys darted in and out with buckets of water and mops.
I spied Matty scrubbing the marble slabs in the pastry kitchen. She looked up, saw us—her eyes almost popping when she recognized Blake—then quickly returned to her work.
Those not scrubbing or disposing were gathered in small knots, whispering darkly among themselves. Above the hum of steam and voices, Monsieur Benoît, the roasting chef, raged at some unfortunate minion. He boxed the young man on the ears, then stalked off to the butchery. The rest of his cooks clustered around black-haired Albert, who was regaling his audience with some no doubt unsavory anecdote.
“Troops aren’t happy,” Blake murmured. He held his hat under his arm and looked about the kitchen, as if in reverent awe.
Matty went for clean water and, as she turned to do so, another girl collided with her. I recognized her as the kitchen maid who had brought the tea tray and looked at Matty with such dislike on my first visit to the kitchen. Water splashed over both of them, and the other girl shrieked and turned furiously upon Matty:
“Watch yourself! Think you’re so grand you doan have to look out for anyone else!” She pushed Matty in the chest, the hardest blow she could, sending her tumbling to the floor. The girl’s eruption broke through the odd, muted air of the kitchen, and about the two an expectant audience fell silent. Blake took hold of my sleeve, thinking I might intercede. But Matty got herself up quickly and gazed fiercely at the girl with her fists clenched.
She said in a low voice, “I don’t want no trouble, Margaret. Never have. But if you want to make something of it, I won’t back off, believe me. I’d rather keep my place here, and I fancy so would you.”
A whoop went up from a gang of young men who had been hanging about the game larder.
The other girl took a step back. “If there will be any place to keep,” she muttered. And then, “You take care, Matty Horner, I’m watching you.”
Perrin, the prince of the kitchen, came over and clapped his hands.
“Enough, girls! Enough! You, Alfred, Robert”—he pointed at the noisy young men—“taisez-vous. This is not a day for dispute.”
I fancied both girls blushed slightly as they bobbed their apologies and went their own ways. There was an unnatural quiet for a moment, then the drone of chatter began again.
In the doorway of the main kitchen, his arms folded tightly across his chest and absentmindedly biting his thumb, Morel watched Perrin.
No one gave Blake or me a second look.
• • •
SOYER HAD DISAPPEARED. We found him by one of the entrances where food deliveries were made. Morel had followed him. A tower of fruit and vegetables had arrived, piled in pallets. Several porters stood by, their smuttiness standing out in the white cleanliness of the kitchen. Soyer was entirely absorbed in the crates. He looked over them then pointed out the third pallet down.
“I wish to see this one,” he said peremptorily, and the porters lifted the top pallets off so he could examine the produce. A cornucopia of potatoes, lettuce and carrots were exposed. He dug his hands through them. Then he raised his arms in the air as if he were about to declaim a speech in a theater.
“Non. Non, non, non!” he cried. “Not good enough! The potatoes are spoiled, the winter lettuce is wilted. This is not up to our standard. It will not do.”
The carrier scowled. “My master said—”
“I do not care what your master said, I cannot serve this at the Reform!” Soyer’s tone became progressively higher and angrier. “I will not pay for it, and if your master cannot give me what I need, I will go elsewhere!” He drew his arms down to his sides, as if he were fighting to contain a great fury.
“But—”
“No blandishments, no bribes, no threats cut ice with me, you may be sure. Take it away!” And he folded his arms and pushed his chest out.
“My master says you owe him money!”
Everyone about the pallets seemed to breathe at the same time. Soyer ignored them. The phrase echoed in my ears. It was almost precisely what the butcher’s man had said.
The porters piled the pallets back on top of each other, angry but powerless, and carried their spoiled goods outside. Soyer strode off to his office.
I looked at Blake. He seemed to me to be hiding behind his spectacles and his mustache, unobtrusive and as unreadable as ever.
• • •
I KNOCKED on Soyer’s office door and went in, Blake sliding in silently behind me. There was Francobaldi, insufferable and commiserating. Soyer fiddled with a pencil as Francobaldi spoke, upending it and righting it again and again. His fancy lavender frock coat was folded over the back of his chair. Even his hat looked limp. His spark of liveliness, that which drew attention to him in any company, seemed all but extinguished. There was no fire in the grate, the gaslights were out; the room was downright funereal.
“Why, Captain Avery,” Francobaldi said, in his ripe Continental tones, “here you are again, like the proverbial ‘bad penny.’ Can it be that you have moved into the club for good? I must say, your timing is terrible, ha ha ha.” He laughed heartily.
I smiled coldly. “I might say the same for you, Mr. Francobaldi.”
“Well, perhaps I should take my leave. Soyer,” he said, “chin up! As they say.”
The door closed. Soyer stared at his pencil.
“What was he doing here?” I said.
“He brought a present to thank me for the dinner.” He spoke listlessly and pointed to a bottle on the desk. “It is a passable burgundy. Naturally, I could hardly keep the news from him. I have no doubt he will tell everyone, especially as I particularly asked for his discretion.”
There was silence.
“It seems that death surrounds me,” said Soyer. “My brother last year, and my mother-in-law. Then Cunningham and Rowlands. Now this.” His voice began to rise alarmingly. “I do not understand how it happened. I have worked so hard. We went so thoroughly through everything. But there is a poison in my kitchen, and I cannot root it out, and I do not know how to stem it. And I do not know what to tell them, even if I may trust them. Oh, Emma, si tu étais ici! If you were only here. Her good sense would guide me. But she is not! And then there is the banquet, which now I dread. I am sorry, Capitaine, you find me at a low ebb.”
“Courage, Monsieur Soyer! We will find a way through it,” I said, finding myself unexpectedly moved. “I have some news—good news. But you must prepare yourself. And please, you must be quiet.”
Chapter Twelve
I drew Blake forward and removed his spectacles. He stood straighter and ruffled his hair. Soyer stared for a moment, then his eyes grew round and his hat almost fell off his head. He threw himself at Blake and kissed him on both cheeks, which Blake submitted to with surprisingly good grace. When he at last let him go, Soyer said, “But I should hardly have known you—”
Blake picked up Soyer’s invention, the tendon separator, and began to turn it over in his hands.
“So you have made it. Very clever.”
“But this is nothing! Blake, you are here! My faith is restored. We will root out this blight. I feel sure of it now!” He looked extremely cheered.
“Avery and I will do what we can to help you, Alexis,” said Blake, “but the police are bound to come, and I cannot make promises. And no one can know who I am.”
“You are in disguise!”
“I am in trouble.”
“My dear fellow! But all will be well now, I am certain!”
“We are saying I am Avery’s manservant. My name is Maguire,” Blake said. “It’s important. If I am discovered, I will have to leave at once.”
“Maguire. I will remember.”
“Where is Emma, Alexis?”
“She is in Belgium. A major commission. I have not written. I do not wish to upset her. She is—” He arched his hands about his belly to show she was with child.
“May I offer my congratulations,” I said. I could not have imagined a more inopportune moment for such news.
“What next?” said Blake.
“I must close the kitchen, at least for today. The Lord knows what will happen with Lord Palmerston’s banquet. Two days away, and planned for so long! We had already started on some of the dishes, and have had to dispose of them all. Sauces that take days to prepare. There are untouched deliveries that arrived this morning. Do I discard them, too? And what of all our dried goods? Flour, grains, preserves, wines, spirits? They might all be tainted.” He sat back, thoroughly discouraged. He hesitated. “Do you think this might have been some terrible accident? And Rowlands, too?”
“If you can think of a way that strychnine could accidentally find its way into someone’s dinner.”
“Strychnine? But it was arsenic!”
“Strychnine. And there is the second man, who appears to be recovering. With this and Cunningham, I can’t see Rowlands’s death as an accident. But we’ll have to wait for Wakley’s conclusions.”
“Monsieur Wakley said that it might have been an accident,” Soyer persisted.
“Did he?”
“He said that arsenic and other things may creep into food, when we do not realize . . .” He stopped. “I know it is an absurdity.”
“Arsenic and strychnine are not hard to come by if you’re killing rats, or if you’re a doctor or druggist. In India, they use strychnine in very small amounts to stimulate the appetite. Have you ever toyed with that?”
“But of course not!” said Soyer. “We use strychnine for one thing—killing vermin. As we do arsenic. They are both kept locked in a special cupboard.”
“Then it seems to me that it is most likely to be deliberate: someone wants to cause harm to the club, or you, or wants to prevent this banquet. Does anything occur to you—any small thing—that might help us?”
“Non.”
“Did you know these men at all—Addiscomb and Rickards?”
“Perhaps by name. I think they ate here a good deal. But I cannot recall ever having met them.”
“I need to ask you, Alexis”—Blake watched Soyer closely as he spoke—“can you think of any way that poison could have got into food served from this kitchen?”
“You are accusing me? Alors, pourquoi ferrais-je ça? Why would I do that? My reputation stands upon what I serve. This is my calling! A chef has a sacred duty to provide goodness and nourishment to those who come to him for sustenance. I mean, the idea is absurd!”
“Calm yourself, Alexis. That was not what I was asking,” Blake said, but I was not sure I believed him. “I want you to try to imagine all the possible ways in which poison might be added to food or drink here.”
“Are you asking me if I trust my staff? You think I should distrust them? I do not go about looking for traitors. I could not work in such a way. My staff follow me because they know that even the lowliest is engaged in a great enterprise and they know that I shall see that they are cared for.”
“Even the ones on a few shillings a week, hardly enough to feed themselves?” said Blake.
“Even they. I ensure that no one leaves the kitchen hungry.”
“It is a practical question. How does poison get into the food?”
Soyer persisted in eluding it. “A mistake, perhaps? Someone confusing one powder for another.”
“Which you said could not take place in your kitchen.”
Soyer threw up his hands. “An assassin steals in unseen and sprinkles it upon the plate!”
Blake sighed and answered the question himself. “The fact is, it is most likely that the poison is being administered in the kitchen or when the food is en route to the dining room. It is also possible that it has come from a supplier, already contaminated, deliberately but erratically, so that only one or two are affected.”
“Or it could take place at the table.”
Blake ignored this. “Tell me, how do your staff regard you?”
“I like to think that they are satisfied in their work, and they see me as their captain, perhaps even as a father.”
“But, on occasion, they have mutinied,” said Blake.
“Yes,” he said impatiently, “it is true. I demand the highest standards. Perhaps I ask too much. But I try to reward as well as demand.”
“I have noticed,” I said hesitantly, “a good deal of rivalry in the kitchen, and feelings run high.”
“Bah! Any kitchen is thus. Every apprentice wishes to be a commis, every commis to be a cuisinier, every cuisinier to be a chef de partie. That is what galvanizes the kitchen, making each strive to do better. Those with real talent rise over the heads of the others. It is conflict, it is life.”
“And sometimes it is violent,” I said.
“Sometimes.”
“I have seen the younger chefs bait and fight each other in a manner that the army would not accept, not on duty.”
“It is never excessive.”
“I saw the roast chef, Monsieur Benoît, beat one of his apprentices with a knife, and nearly stab him. And Gimbell beat a boy senseless.”
“Ça arrive,” said Soyer. “One is training young men for perfection. One must be harsh until they learn. There i
s nothing remarkable in this.”
“What if some young man here nursed an anger toward you for condoning this? Or one of your cooks’ admiration turns to frustration and from frustration into madness?” said Blake.
Soyer raised his hands. “I do not know. I should not believe it.”
“What about suppliers?”
“What of them?”
“Forgive me, sir,” I said, “but I saw you lose your temper twice and return deliveries that were not up to your standard. Might one of them wish to be revenged upon you?”
“The idea is ridiculous!”
“What of one of your rivals? Francobaldi? He is jealous enough of you, and he wishes you no good.”
“He would never go that far.”
“Do you owe anyone money?” said Blake.
“Please!”
“I am serious. Have you got yourself into trouble? Gambling hells? Women?”
“Blake! I work all hours, and hardly have time for such things. And, besides, I adore my wife!”
There was a short silence.
“Well,” Soyer said, “nothing that would cause any problems, I assure you.”
“Enough speculation,” said Blake, “We must get to work. Someone must write to all the diners to see if others are ill.”
“Mon Dieu, Blake! The club would never agree to that, and I—”
“You what?” Blake said sharply.
“No, you are right.” Soyer cast his eyes down. “But I tell you, such an inquiry, it will kill the club, and the kitchen. You know what reputation is in this city.”
“You think news of this won’t have crept into the broadsides by tomorrow morning?”
“No one who counts reads them or believes them. Please, might we wait before we inquire after the health of everyone who ate here? I do not wish to be heartless, but surely, if the dinner had harmed them, it would be too late by now?”
“We would discover whether the victims were deliberately chosen or if the poison was more widely spread, and how it might have been administered.”
“I understand.” Soyer looked as if all the air had leaked out of him. Then he rallied. “But it has been my experience that, if someone does become sick after eating in a professional dining room, one does hear of it eventually. Could we not wait, just a little?”
