by Myers, Amy
Annoyed at the fellow leaping up and down like a jack-in-the-box, wishing that he could escape as easily, and regretful that he had not demanded his urgent message for somewhat earlier, the Prince of Wales shifted uneasily in his plush upright seat in the ballroom to which they had adjourned. He felt as if he were at one of Mama’s evenings. She never invited him to the jolly ones. He had to sit out in the corridor at Windsor listening to Electrophone transmissions of some opera that went on and on before the warblers saw fit to die with some interminable aria. Mama didn’t bother to invite him when she hauled over Lord George Sanger’s circus two weeks ago. Oh no.
Where was old Throgmorton? He was taking a devil of a time to change. The audience was fidgeting behind him, and there was a limit to the amount of time he intended to chat to this crazy woman next to him in the soiled wedding dress and veil. He felt as if he were at yet another family wedding. Hallo, something was happening at last.
Samuel Pipkin, eagerness all over his face, had bounded up to the reading desk, arranged to look identical to that used by Dickens himself in his tours around the country. Samuel begged the company’s indulgence as chairman elect to entertain them with a short piece in Sir Thomas’s absence. He had not thought his chance would come so opportunely.
Entertaining it was, if unusual for a Dickens evening, for Samuel was a consummate actor. When he read from Mr Thackeray’s Book of Snobs, choosing the ‘Great City Snob’ as his text, imitating the while Sir Thomas’s mannerism of impatiently snapping his fingers and clasping his lapel, followed by his grave walk, hands behind back, no one had had the least doubt as to whom was meant. A ripple of suppressed laughter ran round the room. Samuel was declaiming of the ‘grave, pompous and awful being’ with great zest when Sir Thomas himself arrived, clad as Bill Sikes, and with murder on his own mind to judge by his face when he took in Samuel’s performance. Carefully grubbied white breeches tied below the knee, open-necked shirt and spotted scarf tied untidily, lace-up boots, he struck as much awe into the onlookers as would Sikes himself. But remembering the vote to come, Sir Thomas controlled himself in his words. He, at least, was a gentleman.
He strode to the desk. ‘Thank you, Mr Pipkin,’ he said, drinking from the glass of water placed for his convenience. ‘I look forward later to your own delightful performance of a cheap-jack. It could not fail to be excellent in your hands, and quite put Mr Thackeray in the shade.
‘Now I open tonight’s reading from the master’s great Oliver Twist, the famous scene chosen by Dickens for his own readings and which led to his early death, from the violent emotion that swept over him each time he read this passage.’
The emotion seemed to have reached Sir Thomas early for his face was very pale, and he drank the remaining water before commencing his tale. His voice was even more hoarse now, with the emotion of the reading. ‘The robber . . . dragged her into the middle of the room and, looking once towards the door, placed his heavy hand upon her mouth.’ His own hand came round like Sikes’s, and then passed over his brow. ‘“. . . spare my life for the love of Heaven as I spared yours,” rejoined the girl, clinging to him. “Bill, dear Bill, you cannot have the heart to kill me.”’
Auguste, watching from the doorway, was fascinated, rapt as he continued his performance, the audience equally gripped.
‘“The man struggled violently to release his arm.”’ Sir Thomas picked up the empty glass, replaced it, continuing brokenly: ‘“. . . Bill,” cried the girl.’ All eyes were on Sir Thomas. Even the Prince of Wales was interested. This man should have his vote, no doubt about it. He had presence. Better than old Pipsqueak. Perhaps he’d stay after all.
‘. . . The housebreaker freed one arm, and grasped his pistol . . . he beat it twice, with all the force he could summon, upon the upturned face that almost touched his own.’
The effort seemed almost too much for the reader, whose voice dropped deeply, Auguste noticed uneasily.
‘She staggered and fell; nearly blinded with the blood that rained down from a deep gash in her forehead; but raising herself with difficulty . . . breathed one prayer for mercy to her Maker. It was a ghastly figure to look upon.’
Sir Thomas’s face was pale, paler even than those of his audience, most of whom were wondering whether this were not a little too much emotion after all that goose. ‘The murderer staggering backwards to the wall and shutting out the sight with his hand, seized a heavy club and struck . . .’
It ended in a choking splutter as Sir Thomas, following Nancy’s tragic end, collapsed to his knees, clutching at and dragging over the lectern, and then falling to the floor where he lay as insensible as Nancy herself.
A burst of tentative clapping petered out and a strange unease ran round the audience as Sir Thomas failed to rise. Angelina ran forward and knelt over him.
‘A doctor, we need a doctor. Is there a doctor here? And water, quickly.’ She stood up.
Auguste was already at her side, feeling for a pulse.
‘Thomas,’ cried Gwendolen in alarm, running up. ‘It’s his stomach, his stomach.’
‘Marigold,’ cried Samuel, confusing reality in hysteria, ‘I’m Dr Marigold.’
‘His heart beats too rapidly,’ Auguste said to Angelina in concern. Surely this was no ordinary stomach illness? Then he saw the eyes, the dilated pupils, as did Oliver Michaels peering over Auguste’s shoulder.
‘That’s odd,’ said Oliver quietly.
From the audience, a gentleman with check trousers, a huge bulbous nose and an eyepatch arrived. ‘Squeers,’ he announced apologetically. ‘I’m a doctor. Let me see him.’
Auguste thankfully ceded his place, quietly pointing to the eyes. ‘Opium?’ said Oliver to him as he stood up.
‘Poison of one kind or another, I fear,’ said Auguste gravely. ‘Look at the rash on his face – that was not there before.’ He stood aside as the doctor, consulting quickly with Mr Multhrop who had arrived glassy-eyed and panic-stricken, arranged to have Sir Thomas carried to another room. Perhaps the patient had taken medicine for his stomach while he had been away from the table, and taken too much.
‘Food poisoning,’ said Multhrop hollowly, avoiding Auguste’s eye.
‘Possibly,’ said the doctor noncommittally.
Auguste glanced towards the Prince of Wales deep in conversation with Lord Beddington. Quickly his mind ran over all the awful possibilities. Food poisoning? Not with his food. No, this was something more serious. And this situation, albeit not poison, had happened before too. Suppose it were not an accident. Suppose—
‘Sire,’ he said, ‘may I speak with you?’
The Prince of Wales looked up annoyed. Cooks, however good, should not interrupt his conversations.
‘Sir Thomas is not very well, sire.’
‘I am exceedingly sorry to hear it.’ The Prince turned back.
Auguste hesitated, then plunged again. ‘You will recall, sire, at Cannes a gentleman was taken ill.’ The Prince’s head swivelled back to him, and the royal eyes fixed on him. ‘I fear somewhat the same circumstances.’
‘Ah.’ The Prince of Wales rose to his feet. ‘If you will excuse me, Beddington, I see my detective beckoning me.’
Ten minutes later a small party, including a highly suspicious private detective, made its way out through the tradesmen’s entrance, escorted by Auguste. The only other person privy to the beating of the retreat was a young kitchenmaid, who stared at her future monarch in amazement.
Auguste went slowly into the kitchens, unable to think fully of all the awful possibilities of the situation. Mr Multhrop was ordering hot water and coffee demanded by the doctor.
‘I feel, Mr Multhrop,’ Auguste interjected in the effort to convert unspeakable thoughts in concrete action, ‘we should stop work in the kitchen.’
‘You can’t take time off now, Mr Dee,’ said Mr Multhrop, horrified.
He smiled despite himself. ‘No, sir, the food will need to be examined.’
Multhrop looked at
him in panic, then remembered he wasn’t responsible for the food. ‘Yes,’ he said eagerly, ‘you’re right.’
The order was implemented. No further work was to be carried out, no food touched. The kitchens were to be locked.
‘But what about breakfast?’ wailed Mr Multhrop. ‘Why lock them?’ Auguste did not answer. How could he explain that something inside him, experience, foreboding, sick terror, told him this might be necessary?
Before breakfast a far worse problem than a locked kitchen hit Mr Multhrop, the Imperial and Auguste.
At 4 a.m. after a night in which thunderstorms had rumbled and broke continually, and despite Squeers’ and a Broadstairs doctor’s best ministrations, Sir Thomas Throgmorton died.
Squeers came out to where Mr Multhrop was sitting, wilting on a chair foreseeing the end of his hotel. ‘He’s dead, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘Can’t issue a certificate. Some highly toxic poison. Atropine, unless I’m much mistaken. Belladonna. That rash was significant, and the delirium, hallucinations.’
‘An accident, perhaps?’ offered Mr Multhrop hopefully.
‘It would have been a large dose. Odd kind of accident. We’re not talking about children eating deadly nightshade. This might be suicide or murder. I’ll have to notify the police.’
‘The police,’ moaned Mr Multhrop, mind flitting wearily from one problem to another. ‘But this is the Imperial.’
The doctor had little sympathy for the Imperial.
‘Suicide seems unlikely,’ reflected Auguste dully, eyes smarting with tiredness. ‘He’d have had to have taken it during the meal or shortly after. A curious time to choose with the Prince of Wales present, and a reading to give.’
The doctor looked at him. Auguste was still attired incongruously in his Soyer costume. ‘You’re the cook?’
With those three simple words, nightmare swept over Auguste. He himself had said it: suicide or murder. And if the latter, he was the cook.
The serpent was present even in this Eden of Broadstairs. Again it had slithered in on his holiday, and, worst, it was a murder in which he would be interrogated. Once again he was in the sobering presence of violent death. That it was at the seaside made it seem all the worse. His career, all that was left to him now Tatiana was gone for ever, was ruined. For ever he would be the ‘cook at the Throgmorton death’. Then a small spark of comfort occurred to him.
Egbert Rose was at Ramsgate.
Chapter Six
Egbert Rose lay in bed blissfully contemplating breakfast. Kippers, kedgeree, kidneys – what a sturdy sound all these good breakfast dishes had. Not that he wanted any of them this morning. He had slept well, entirely oblivious of the thunderstorms that Edith told him somewhat reproachfully had kept her sleepless all night. Edith was already up, and had awoken him with her cries of woe when she drew back the heavy plush curtains to discover grey skies and drizzle. Would it clear in time for the band concert this afternoon? This was her main anxiety. Should she don her heavier serge walking dress or be optimistic and wear the foulard she had planned? She eyed its mauve folds wistfully.
‘Which do you think, Egbert?’ she enquired dolefully, uncomfortably aware that the draught coming in the window did not bode well for the foulard.
‘A nice fresh herring,’ he murmured, turning over and going back to sleep.
‘Oh Egbert,’ she snorted, banging the door behind her as she departed for the bathroom.
Rose enjoyed having breakfast at Ramsgate. In fact he was enjoying this whole holiday. He enjoyed not being known as Inspector Rose, he enjoyed the sausages from Spratling’s Colonial Butchers, he enjoyed kedgeree, and most of all he enjoyed the fresh fish brought in by the landlady’s schoolboy son. Fresh fish was something he didn’t see a lot of in Highbury.
‘I’ve finished, Egbert,’ announced Edith unnecessarily, sweeping back into the room swathed in the huge purple dressing gown she had bought for decorousness lest she be passed in the corridor on the way to the bathroom. Her pink cheeks bore testimony to the scrubbing they had endured from Dr Mackenzie’s Arsenical Soap (as used by Madame Patti, Ellaline Terriss, etc.).
Rose smiled. He liked seeing Edith happy. He thought a little wistfully of Provence, tried and failed to see Edith as happy in the Hôtel Paradis, and returned to savour anew the pleasures of Ramsgate. Perhaps they’d take an excursion by brake to Pegwell Village this afternoon if the concert had to be cancelled because of rain. Or perhaps it might clear up?
He jumped out of bed, contemplated his new seaside pyjamas with renewed pleasure, and prepared to enjoy the second week of his precious holiday.
Thirty minutes later, Edith clad in mauve foulard and he in grey flannels and blazer, they descended for breakfast. Edith walked first into the small dining room already crowded with boarders.
‘Why, good morning, Auguste,’ he heard her say in tones of mingled surprise and pleasure. He blinked. He must have heard her wrong. But no. There at a table was a clearly dejected, drooping Auguste, with large dark circles under his eyes.
Rose’s first reaction was pleasure, the second unease, and the third a downright sinking feeling inside that had nothing to do with appetite.
‘Would your friend like a nice hot kipper?’ asked Mrs Burbanks the landlady solicitously, on the grounds that foreigners, however well they spoke English, would never understand it. ‘He says not, but he don’t look well to me. A nice hot cup of tea is what he needs.’ She bustled out, and five minutes later Auguste was sipping from a willow-pattern cup with Edith’s and Egbert’s eyes on him. Coffee, strong and black, was what he needed, not Mr Jackson’s breakfast tea, but how could one explain that to the good English landlady?
Nevertheless, he did feel somewhat improved, and he turned to Rose. ‘You must forgive me, mon ami, but . . .’
‘In trouble, eh, Auguste?’ Rose asked quietly. ‘Something wrong?’
‘I fear so. I fear so very much. I shall be arrested, perhaps beheaded.’ His lack of sleep was contributing to an irrational but lingering fear that the Prince of Wales might also drop dead. How well did he know his pupils? Suppose one of them had put something nasty in the food by error – or by purpose. Even worse, suppose Heinrich Freimüller were a foreign agent, deputed to kill the Prince? If atropine it was, it was easily obtainable in extract of belladonna. Or suppose that accidentally seeds or fruit of the atropine group of plants had been included in the vegetables or herbs? He had not checked them all personally. His mind ran rampant over the terrible possibilities.
Rose raised his eyebrows and drank a cup of Mrs Burbanks’ tea. The herring looked delicious but he wasn’t at all sure he was going to enjoy it as much as he’d thought. ‘Sure you won’t have a herring, Auguste?’
Auguste shuddered. ‘No. I thank you, Egbert.’
‘Then you’d better tell me.’
‘It is murder, I think, my friend,’ he said dolefully.
Edith clucked in anxiety. Rose dropped his fork. ‘Murder,’ he repeated. ‘Not again. How the deuce – I beg your pardon, my love – do you manage to do it, Auguste?’
‘I do not know, mon ami, but do it I do. It is not certain, but I fear it must be. Poison, you see.’
‘Ah.’ Rose now understood fully the reason for the early visit. ‘One of your pupils, is it?’
‘Non. It is Sir Thomas Throgmorton, after the Grand Dickensian Banquet I told you about.’
Rose whistled, and the dining room assembly looked up, annoyed at being disturbed in their silence.
‘After the meal for which I was responsible,’ Auguste continued mournfully.
Suddenly the drizzle outside looked a lot less likely to clear up.
‘Murder,’ repeated Rose. ‘Poison. You cooked the meal.’ He sighed. ‘This is where we came in, at Stockbery Towers.’
Auguste smiled faintly. ‘Egbert, I am not sure. It was only five hours ago he died. But who would choose to commit suicide in the middle of a dinner sitting next to the Prince of Wales?’
The knife
dropped to join its companion. ‘The Prince of Wales?’ echoed Rose hollowly. Suddenly this was ceasing to be solely his friend’s problem. If the Prince of Wales were involved in any way, Scotland Yard would be too. Thomas Throgmorton – wasn’t he some kind of banker? International banker, his memory threw up. Rose could have groaned aloud. Trust Auguste to get mixed up with it. He couldn’t throw him to the wolves of his colleagues at the Factory. Suppose Twitch had an urge to flex his ambitious wings over this one?
‘These kippers are very good, Auguste,’ said Edith hopefully. ‘Are you sure you won’t join us? You need to keep your strength up.’
Auguste reached out his hand and took hers. ‘Dear Edith, will you forgive me? Your holiday – and I come with tales of murder.’
‘I expect Egbert will help you. Won’t you, Egbert?’
He would not be seen to give way easily. He regarded Auguste morosely. ‘I’m on holiday,’ he pointed out.
‘Moi aussi, mon ami,’ replied Auguste dolefully.
‘I suppose you’d better tell me all about it. After I’ve finished this herring.’
One hour later, Rose stood at the window of his room looking down at the harbour scene. He had already spent much time on the hotel telephone to Scotland Yard. ‘My dear,’ he said at last to Edith, ‘do you think you might enjoy the rest of your holiday at Broadstairs?’
The delights of the Paragon, the Baths, the Marina Pier, Ellington Park and the Leghorn hat in Lewis Hyland and Linom’s window floated temptingly before her eyes. ‘I’m sure I would, Egbert,’ she answered loyally.
Auguste returned to Broadstairs by donkey cart, somewhat cheered, feeling he could face anything. First he should go to the hotel to see what was happening.
His ability to face anything was severely tested by Mr Multhrop, who clutched him firmly by his lapels as he entered the door, as if holding him under close arrest, an impression strengthened by the sight of a uniformed policeman standing behind him.
