by M. J. Carter
“But Scott is gone,” I said.
Blake took her hand but said nothing.
• • •
AT THREE O’CLOCK of the afternoon, four hours before the banquet, I presented myself at Soyer’s office. Lord Marcus and Molesworth—the first time I had seen either in the kitchens—along with Soyer and Percy, had come to hear my conclusions, such as they were. Morel was missing.
“I cannot imagine what has happened to him,” Soyer said anxiously. “I have sent two messages to his lodgings. He is not there. He is always so reliable.”
“The girl has been released, and I am told you are convinced Perrin is not the poisoner, even though he was caught red-handed,” said Lord Marcus heavily. Molesworth said nothing but regarded me balefully. I admit I was not happy to see him.
“For the following reasons,” I said, and repeated Blake’s arguments.
“Perhaps Mr. Morel is the culprit, then?”
“I do not think it is he, and I am sure he will be back,” I said. I hoped he would.
“Where is he, then?” asked Soyer tightly.
“Captain, I appreciate your efforts, I do. But are you not making difficulties where none exist?” said Lord Marcus.
“Believe me, sir, I do not believe it is Morel. And I am deeply sorry, sir, that I do not have another name. We have looked at everything we could think of. We have questioned everyone we could.”
“I hear you have mortally offended Mr. Molesworth,” Lord Marcus observed.
“He is entitled to his opinion,” said Molesworth coldly. “He was simply wrong. About a good deal, it appears.”
“We have tested deliveries,” I went on, “and had no positive results. My manservant, Maguire, has observed the kitchen from every angle. We cannot be certain how the poison was administered, simply that it was. As for Russians, Collinson told me to leave the embassy to him and, otherwise, we have found no evidence of any connection to them.”
“So, by your own lights, you have failed,” said Molesworth.
“Yes, sir. But I do have one more suggestion, though it is somewhat rash,” I said.
Blake sighed and rubbed his ear.
“Tell us,” said Soyer.
“We—I—will be the last line of defense. I will eat something of all that is to be served. Whatever is made in advance, I will eat early, so we can have as good a chance as possible for any effects to be seen. Whatever must be done for the guests at the table, we will taste as it goes. It is perhaps not the best idea, I know. Someone could simply sprinkle some arsenic over something as the food goes out. One entremet could be poisoned and all the rest perfectly good. But I want to stop this horror as much as any man, and this is all I can suggest.”
“Captain Avery, I am deeply touched,” said Soyer. “I am not sure I can allow it.”
“You will allow the diners to eat your food, but not me?” I said.
“With the express reason to see if it poisons? There is something terrible about that. But you are right. I cannot serve my own food without being willing to partake of it, myself. I, too, will taste,” said Soyer.
“No, sir,” said Percy. “You will be making final preparations and serving, Monsieur Soyer. You will not be able to taste everything.”
“I will do my best.”
“I should like to volunteer myself,” said Percy.
“You will not have time,” said Soyer. “You will be upstairs, overseeing the waiters and then here with the wine, but the offer is noted.”
“I have arranged everything, sir. To the last detail. The footmen and the underbutlers know their work. I could certainly stay for a while, sir. Please, I should like to.”
“For a while, then.”
“I am moved by your persistence, Captain Avery,” said Lord Marcus. “Personally, it seems to me that Perrin is clearly guilty. But, as chairman, I have a duty to the club, and I should like to accompany you in the early tasting. After that, I will have to absent myself to greet the arrivals.”
“I will taste, too,” said Molesworth drily. “If only to show—though I should not have to—that I am no less committed to this club than you, Marcus. Also I should like to observe the captain, who has such faith in me.”
I swallowed. Blake grunted and looked resigned. “I’ll do it. It’s rash and unscientific, of course, but it’s something.”
“Is your servant always given to speaking his mind so bluntly?” said Molesworth.
“I would have thought you, as a radical, would appreciate honesty in a working man,” said Blake.
For once, Molesworth was without an answer. Lord Marcus smirked.
“So,” I said, “we will taste and continue to have as much of the food’s preparation as we can manage supervised by the soldiers. When dishes go out to the diners, the soldiers will accompany the waiters. The underbutlers and footmen will be watched by the soldiers as they open and pour the bottles of wine. Gentlemen,” I said, not quite believing what I was saying, “we have a quorum.”
Chapter Twenty-two
It was three hours until the banquet. The food that had already been prepared was under guard by the Scots Fusiliers. They had orders not to touch anything, on pain of court-martial. The cooks were nearing their limit. Tempers were fraying, and every cook had a burn or a knife wound, to the extent that Percy was now patrolling the kitchen, administering salves and binding cuts.
We sat in Soyer’s study at the large table: Blake and myself, Lord Marcus and Molesworth, the two latter wrapped in kitchen whites so as not to sully their evening clothes—and Percy, once he had completed his medical duties; as unlikely dinner companions as I could imagine.
“The rules, gentlemen,” I said. “Each item is to be tried by one diner. Notes to be kept of who ate what. Two to three spoons each, then five minutes until the next dish. If you detect any tastes that seem alien to you, or any unusual reaction—pain, tingling in your mouth, throat or even in your extremities, however small, you mention it at once. I cannot say how effective this will be.”
I had not been sure how I should feel about eating my way through the dishes in order to discover if they were fatal; I suppose I had thought that the apprehension of danger would dull my appetite. I was surprised to find that the opposite was true. The sense that every mouthful might be one’s last added a kind of zest to the occasion, and I sat down with a peculiar sense of anticipation. I was reminded of the battlefield in the moment before a skirmish.
Of my fellow diners, Blake showed nothing in his expression, Lord Marcus did his best but was clearly frightened, Molesworth was characteristically nonchalant, Percy utterly correct—though his nerves were apparent in his habit of continually shooting his cuffs. Soyer overlaid his anxiety with light chatter.
We began with the soups. For me, potage à la Victoria, a pale golden, thickened veal broth garnished with parsley and cockscomb seeds. My spoon trembled slightly as I brought it to my lips. I grinned and took it. It seemed to me the acme of warmth and meaty fragrance; made the more so, I suspected, by the lingering sense of danger. I took another mouthful.
“No need to overdo it,” said Blake.
Molesworth looked up from his Comte de Paris, a dark-hued consommé in which delicate ribbons of macaroni and tiny balls of chicken mousse floated. He raised an eyebrow.
Blake, meanwhile, tasted potage à la Colbert, a vegetable soup with tiny dice of Jerusalem artichokes, all cut perfectly identical to the size of peas. Percy tried a potage à la Louis Philippe, named after the current, undeserving incumbent of the French throne, a soup flavored with stock and turnip, to be finished with cream and the first impossibly thin asparagus just before serving. Soyer took sips of everything. We waited a few minutes. No strange tastes, we agreed.
The fish would have to be tried much closer to its serving, as would most of the meat dishes. Waiters, each accompanied by a soldier, broug
ht in the various sauces for the fish: I had a sauce Mazarin, a creamy concoction of the soft, coral roe of a lobster, destined for a poached turbot, while Lord Marcus tried a fragrant sherry sauce that would dress a salmon trout, and Percy the crème gratin for a dish of Severn salmon that was due to arrive at any moment. Soyer returned to the kitchen.
We passed on to the garnishes and braises: miraculous veal quenelles for me, a frothy asparagus purée, a stuffing of truffles and mushrooms for capons, braised ox tongues, poached crayfish and fish quenelles for the others.
We went on to those of the twelve entrées that were ready. I took the tiny spring chickens and ham braised in a shiny Madeira sauce. I recall Lord Marcus, blinking and mopping his brow after every bite, tasting tender cubes of hare in a blood sauce, and Percy, with splendid calm, trying little balls of warm quail pâté. Blake took a small, flaky pastry cup of mackerel roe and little molded meat jellies of rice and lambs’ tails.
One of the kitchen clerks came in, asking for Percy. He left us, and when he returned he asked our pardon but he was needed elsewhere. We wished him well and continued.
Molesworth suddenly started from his veal sweetbreads and puréed cucumbers and began to cough. We looked up from our plates. He turned very white and waved his hand up and down before his face.
“Monsieur?” said Soyer.
“Gentlemen, I think perhaps there is something bitter in these.” Molesworth began to shake.
Soyer passed him water and a concoction of milk and egg white, which, he had explained, should help mitigate the effects of any arsenic. Molesworth tossed it back immediately.
“May I?” said Blake.
Molesworth nodded. Blake helped himself. “No. I’d say it is clear. Soyer?”
Soyer took a bite. He shook his head. “A false alarm, I think, sir,” he said.
Molesworth sat down. He took several deep breaths and tried to recapture his composure. “So you are both familiar with the taste of arsenic,” he said at last. “Monsieur Soyer and Mr.—Maguire, is it?—or is it Mr. Blake?”
I felt myself go cold. Blake stared determinedly at the table.
“I’m not a bloody fool,” said Molesworth. “Who else should you be? Rude, ill-tempered, leading the captain by the nose. I mean, has not everyone realized?”
Lord Marcus looked astonished. Soyer suddenly became very preoccupied by his tendon separators.
“Oh, I have no reason to expose you, Mr. Blake. I want this mess arranged as much as anyone.” He looked pointedly at Lord Marcus.
“As do we all,” said Lord Marcus.
“Besides,” said Molesworth, “you may be dead by the end of this.”
Blake took off his gloves and his spectacles. “I may.”
“Ah,” said Molesworth, staring at Blake’s hands, “so it was two missing fingers. Shall we continue?”
No more was said. Of the entremets, I essayed curried lobster balls, but we were forced to leave most of the vegetables, for they would not be cooked until the last minute, and went on to the first of the prepared desserts. I had brandy-soaked cherries in little, round, hard toffee cases, elaborately domed meringues, charmingly shaped fruit jellies to be served on beds of whipped cream, small, crisp apricot tarts and little squares of sugared pineapple jelly bonbons.
From time to time, one of us would own to uncertainty about a taste, another would try it, and it would be judged not obviously dangerous. Blake noted all this down on a series of papers. Molesworth and Lord Marcus seemed to have accepted Blake’s unmasking, though it occurred to me that perhaps the endless stream of dishes and the thought that every bite might be their last were making such claims on their attention that it was hard to think of anything else.
Next came the various constituent parts of Soyer’s giant dessert assemblages, his pièces montées. They were to be put together at the last minute, for they could only hold together for so long before collapsing into a puddle of cream, sponge and soggy fruit. In the midst of this, the footman—it was Jeffers, with whom I had first discovered Rowlands as he sickened—came to announce that Lord Marcus and Molesworth were needed upstairs.
There was an hour and a half until the dinner.
“I bid you adieu, gentlemen,” said Molesworth. “I think I have emphatically scotched any suspicions anyone could possibly harbor of me. If one of us is to die, let us hope it takes place before the first course.”
Lord Marcus stood up, tremendously relieved to be finished, and came and pressed my hand. He nodded at Blake. “We will speak later,” he mumbled. Then, more loudly, “Your efforts will not be overlooked.”
I gave Blake a hopeful look, anyway, as if to say, There, you see?
He shook his head.
In the kitchen, a cheer went up. Moments later, Soyer, wreathed in smiles, dragged Morel into the study.
“He is here! We are saved,” he said, embracing his sous-chef. Over his shoulder, Morel gazed at us. Blake shook his head. We had kept his secret.
• • •
JUST AFTER SIX, one began to hear the sound of carriages arriving outside the club. Now Blake and I were alone—though Soyer came in when he could. We had tried the constituent parts of the grand desserts (though we would have to return to more entrées and savories once the dinner began). The least ambitious of these was a concoction of meringues assembled into the shape of a Chinese pagoda, with early strawberries and Soyer’s elaborate joke of lamb cutlets that revealed themselves, on closer inspection, to be cake, cream, frangipane and icing. There were two further large assemblages. One, Soyer called the gâteau britannique à l’amiral, the British admiral’s cake: a pale sponge had been carved into the shape of a man-of-war and iced with rice-paper versions of the Egyptian and English flags. Within it would be placed chilled, sliced fruits and iced peach mousse. The last was the crème d’Égypte à l’Ibrahim Pasha, a dessert in the shape of a pyramid in which light meringue cakes had been carved into the shape of the great square stones of the pyramid, mortared with a pineapple cream and faced with thin, transparent sheets of spun sugar. On top of this would be placed a portrait of Mehmet Ali Pasha, also in spun sugar, and underneath it, etched upon jelly and framed with gold leaf, a portrait of Ibrahim Pasha himself.
We tasted the constituent parts of the ship, but the pyramid, wheeled in by Morel, was now complete.
“How can we ensure this is safe?” Morel said. “Of all the things in the banquet, this surely will be the one the pasha will find most arresting. Were I a poisoner, this is what I would choose to dose.”
“It is the pièce de résistance,” said Soyer. “Lord Palmerston particularly requested it.”
“No one must eat it,” said Blake. “You will have to make sure of that.”
Soyer sighed.
We had done everything we could for the moment and would have now to wait for dishes prepared closer to their serving. Feeling none the worse, save rather full, I went to look at Pall Mall. It was nose-to-tail full of vehicles, and on each side people had gathered to see the arrival of the Egyptian prince. The newspapers had promised a description of the dinner itself in the following day’s editions.
There was a footman’s jacket on a hook. I put it on, took the servants’ stairs to the ground floor and peeped through the half-open door to the saloon. The club was as full as I had ever seen it, with gentlemen in formal evening dress.
The company fell back as Lord Palmerston stepped into the room. Next to him was a short, stout man wearing one of those red felt hats known as a fez and with a lavish salt-and-pepper beard and deep, sunken, tired eyes. His black velvet jacket was embroidered about the edges with gold braid. Pinned to its lapels were a dozen golden rosettes, and about his neck he wore ropes of gold chains. Ibrahim Pasha, for it was he, was followed by three more somberly dressed, mustachioed men, all wearing fezzes. The crowd applauded, and the small, tired man, the famous general of the Eg
yptian army, waved graciously. Lord Marcus, Ellice, Molesworth and Beare came forward, bowed and were introduced. Lord Marcus was still stiff with nerves, while a strained little smile played on Molesworth’s lips. Other worthies were presented, until at last Soyer came forward, in a black velvet suit and with his red velvet cap at its ridiculous angle. He made a deep bow before the prince, who smiled and began to applaud. The rest began to clap, too, though, to my eyes, the gentlemen appeared somewhat strained. I wondered how many of them had had sight of the cheaper papers. Then Palmerston steered the prince into one of the smaller reception rooms, and Soyer, Lord Marcus and the inner committee followed.
The banquet would begin soon.
• • •
IN THE KITCHENS, the heat had never seemed so great, and the presence of the soldiers had become truly irksome to the cooks. Morel clapped and shouted, to apparently little effect. They had, of course, all been working almost without ceasing for two days, and though most of them seemed to think that Perrin probably was the poisoner, the air of threat and fear still lingered.
It was not such a surprise when, just as we had sat down to start tasting again, a cry went up in the kitchen. Two of the junior cooks from the roasts station were shouting.
“It’s him, it’s him! Bloody Deutsch!”
The whole kitchen stopped. No one dared leave their post, but everyone was attending. Matty’s accuser, Albert, was surrounded.
One of the two junior cooks, a Scotsman, said, “He tried to get round the soldiers who were guarding the meat braises. He’s been at it all day, making a thing of it, boasting that he could, on and on. He’s always been a bad ’un. It’s him. He’s the one.”
“It was a joke,” Albert protested, grinning too broadly. “That is all, just a joke.”
Silently, the ill feeling in the kitchen rose up and fixed itself upon him. No one had liked him much, and plenty had detested him.
