Murder Makes an Entree

by Myers, Amy

  ‘So I took my petty revenge. But he got his by being murdered.’ She shook, and Oliver drew her to him, holding her very close, his memory of Angelina assisting Sir Thomas to serve out the dish of kidneys entirely obliterated.

  James Pegg should have been a happy man, for he was with Alfred and unaccompanied by Alice. Indeed, she did not accompany them on this stroll along the Western Esplanade to the Dumpton Gap even in their thoughts. Alfred’s thoughts were elsewhere. ‘Isn’t she a stunner?’ he asked James rhetorically. Despite his outdated slang, James understood him, and agreed, though not in the same sense as Alfred. Beatrice Throgmorton would stun anybody, in James’s view.

  ‘Alfred,’ he said, plucking up courage, ‘did you really threaten to kill Sir Thomas?’

  ‘I may have done.’ Alfred looked sullen. ‘They can’t really suspect me though, can they?’ pleadingly, as though James could protect him.

  ‘They might. Sir Thomas did have a quarrel with someone in the hotel before dinner. But it couldn’t have been you though, could it?’

  ‘No,’ said Alfred shortly, and changed the subject.

  James walked back to Broadstairs alone, for Alfred had decided to continue to Ramsgate to purchase a new boater in honour of his forthcoming engagement to Beatrice. James stuck his hands in his pockets moodily as he went back into Blue Horizons trying to think carefully about what he’d overheard that Saturday afternoon, and how he could turn it to his advantage. On his way up the stairs, however, he was once again an unwitting eavesdropper.

  ‘It was a perfectly innocent meeting, I assure you.’ The unmistakable voice of Algernon Peckham.

  ‘No one ’as an innocent meeting with old ’Iggins. Gorblimey, even the beer thinks twice before going into the Seamen’s Rest. You’re up to summat, ain’t you? What you doin’ ’ere? Got plans involving Mr Didier, ’ave yer?’ Sid was getting aggressive.

  The answer was lost but it must have reassured Sid, for he sounded somewhat mollified. ‘What yer do is yer own business, but one sign that things ain’t right and I’m orf to Monsieur Didier – and the perlice. An’ that ain’t me usual practice.’

  The door opened suddenly and a furious Algernon emerged to find James leaning over the stair rail listening quietly.

  Emily and Heinrich were strolling along the Eastern Esplanade towards Kingsgate. Emily wore her new cream linen skirt and jacket, with a biscuit-coloured Leghorn hat. She was as happy as possible in the circumstances. She was safe now, though she had new anxieties. She glanced at Heinrich. There seemed to be a sudden restraint between them, or was it her imagination?

  ‘Have you ever been married, Heinrich?’ There, it was out.

  ‘Nein.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘In my job,’ he explained, ‘it is difficult.’

  ‘What is your job exactly?’

  ‘I am Embassy cook. You have to travel, live in the Embassy. It is no place for a wife.’ Emily was suddenly even less happy. ‘I wanted to marry once, very much. It was not possible. I have never wanted to again.’ This wasn’t true. All last week he had been happier than for thirty years; he was in love, overwhelmed with the charms of Emily Dawson and the outrageous hope that she might return his affection and become his wife.

  She tried timidly: ‘I am alone too.’

  He patted her hand. ‘You should not go through life alone, Miss Dawson,’ he said absent-mindedly. ‘It is not good.’

  Emily was in full agreement. But ‘Miss Dawson’ he’d called her. It had been Emily all last week.

  ‘Heinrich, are you worried about anything?’

  ‘Nein, Miss Emily, nein.’ His voice was hearty yet the answer did not convince her.

  ‘You haven’t seemed the same since – since it happened,’ she plunged.

  ‘I do not think any of us be the same,’ said Heinrich, frowning. ‘Murder is not a usual thing.’

  ‘I still think it was an accident,’ said Emily. ‘Accidents do happen—’ She shivered, a sudden memory seizing her.

  ‘And even if it vas not, ve have no need to vorry,’ he said firmly.

  ‘Atropine is confirmed, and far too much to have been a slight slip of the deadly nightshade. The analyst was quite excited,’ said Rose to Auguste in Mr Multhrop’s requisitioned office. Auguste had lingered hopefully in the foyer hoping Araminta might appear. She did not. ‘It’s a funny thing about atropine,’ Rose went on. ‘He said it had hardly ever been used intentionally to murder people in Europe, though it’s being used all the time out East for helping relatives on to the next world. He’s come back with a report on the rest of the china and food too. The later courses are all clear, though one or two hadn’t much left on them to analyse. But that’s my theory thrown out of court, that the later courses were to blame. Provided Emily and Alice aren’t acting together, the coffee’s clear – unless something was added at table.’

  ‘Unlikely,’ observed Auguste, ‘since he had already felt ill.’

  ‘So it comes back to the alcohol, probably the brandy, and Lord Wittisham.’

  ‘I did notice that the level of my brandy was considerably reduced,’ admitted Auguste, ‘but perhaps my memory is at fault.’

  ‘First time you’ve ever admitted that possibility, Auguste.’

  ‘You are right, my friend. My memory is not at fault.’

  ‘So everything comes back to our Lord Wittisham. The time gap is right, he had the opportunity and he had a good motive: with Sir Thomas out of the way, he could get the girl and her money. It must have seemed a heaven-sent opportunity with Mrs Figgis-Hewett shouting about breach of promise – if heaven-sent is the word,’ added Rose hastily, ‘and our Mr Pipkin shouting about his rights.’

  ‘How did Lord Wittisham happen to have atropine with him, if it was done on the spur of the moment?’

  Rose frowned. ‘Perhaps he planned it. He knew Throgmorton was going to be here, didn’t he? You told them, you said.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Auguste unhappily.

  ‘Well, then,’ pointed out Rose reassuringly, ‘you gave them five days’ warning to get their poison ready, plus another seven days down here.’

  ‘But you do not just march into a druggist’s and demand atropine,’ objected Auguste.

  ‘No, but this form of atropine is used by one group of people apart from chemists. Those who are in contact with horses.’

  ‘Veterinary surgeons?’

  ‘Horse trainers, owners, anyone with a stables. Like Wittisham, no doubt. Grooms, of course.’

  ‘Grooms,’ echoed Auguste with a sudden and sickening thought. ‘But James Pegg was a groom, and his father is a veterinary surgeon. And, Egbert,’ thinking back, ‘do you not remember he mentioned the bitterness of atropine. How did he know that? We, I am sure, did not mention it.’

  ‘There you are then, Wittisham could get the poison through Pegg even if he had no access himself. Unless, of course,’ he added, ‘Mr Pegg had a motive himself.’

  The landlord of the Albion Hotel was as happy as Mr Multhrop was doleful. He had been doing excellent business from the Lionisers, so good that he was beneficent enough to feel sorry for poor old Cedric. ‘Send them along to me,’ he had said cheerily. What, after all, could be more suitable for the Lionisers than the hotel within whose walls Dickens spent so much time, and where he had completed Nicholas Nickleby, the Albion ‘where we had that merry night two years ago’, he wrote to his friend Forster, an occasion made the merrier by indulgence in the landlord’s ‘excellent hollands’.

  The present landlord was all too eager to keep up his predecessor’s reputation in the matter of hollands, and was only too delighted to dispense it to as many Lionisers who requested it. Since it was a beverage blessed by the great Dickens, it was perceived by the Lionisers as an entirely suitable drink for the ladies, and by the time Rose and Auguste arrived, another merry night was well in progress. Gin, however, whether the Dutch variety or no, was beginning to have distressing results on the ladies in particular, who nevertheles
s persisted in their belief that it was all right because Mr Dickens had said so.

  There had been anxious consultations among the committee as to the propriety of attending a ‘merry night’ with Sir Thomas dead. On balance they decided to attend, in the interests of the group, a decision endorsed by Rose who was anxious to see both groups of his suspects together in an informal setting. Not to mention Beatrice Throgmorton.

  Huddled together in the large lounge as if for protection against the monster they had unwittingly unleashed by their programme, the members of the committee were fully aware of the literally sobering fact that Scotland Yard was on its way. They were somewhat taken aback, however, when its representative arrived not only with the chef, but with an assortment of eight other people, one or two of whom were faintly familiar, though unidentifiable save by Angelina, who had been best placed on Saturday evening to recognise the ‘waiters’ at the banquet.

  Angelina had cheered up considerably, having rid herself of the burden of guilt she was carrying. Oliver had reassured her that Sir Thomas could not possibly have committed suicide through anguish at her rejection and she was now prepared to enjoy the rest of the week immensely, even if it did involve a murder investigation. It was a shocking thing, no doubt, but compared with her future, which suddenly seemed to hold out enticing prospects of a new and exciting life, it had retreated into the background.

  The eighth stranger to most of the Lionisers was Beatrice Throgmorton, dressed superbly and hugely in black, her quick eye running speedily around the assembled company. Alfred started to his feet, but his glad cry of welcome was cut short when Beatrice inclined her stately head in his direction and moved off to sit sandwiched between Auguste Didier and Egbert Rose.

  The landlord, anxious to please, pushed glasses of hollands before the newcomers. They all took it for white wine and discovered their mistake. Beatrice blinked and continued to sip, Auguste and Rose choked.

  ‘This,’ said Auguste carefully, ‘is not a common drink in France: I was not brought up to it.’

  ‘Hollands, sir,’ said the landlord reproachfully, ‘Dickens liked it.’

  Auguste glared. What Dickens liked was the last thing he wished to have lying in, or rather on, his stomach. His stomach was as finely tuned an instrument as was his palate. It had no need of being scorched. Irreparable damage might be done to one of the main tools of his trade.

  ‘What is that woman to you, Alfred?’ asked Alice hurt, remembering yesterday’s encounter.

  ‘That’s Miss Beatrice Throgmorton,’ replied James, delighted to impart bad news. ‘Alfred’s fiancée.’

  ‘Fiancée!’ Alice went pale and looked down into her hollands.

  ‘I’m a lucky chap,’ said Alfred smiling.

  Alice said nothing, but her hands tightened round her glass.

  ‘Is there anyone here you recognise, Miss Throgmorton?’ Rose asked her in a low voice.

  Beatrice looked round carefully once more and named a few Lionisers.

  ‘Besides those. In these two small groups of people here.’

  ‘Mrs Langham,’ she said. ‘Lord Beddington. He often used to come to the house.’

  ‘Anyone else?’

  Beatrice drank her hollands steadily. She frowned. ‘It’s so difficult,’ she said after a while. ‘You see people out of context, years later, you try to judge by a hazy memory – I’m just not sure. There’s something familiar about one, perhaps – oh, I know him.’ She pointed at Algernon Peckham, who was merrier than Auguste had ever seen him, teasing Emily to Heinrich’s disapproval. ‘He was working in the gardens at the château when I was staying in France, and I discovered he was English. Everyone thought he was Italian. He disappeared after the burglary.’

  ‘Burglary?’ said Rose sharply, a dim distant bell ringing in his mind.

  ‘The Countess de la Ferté’s famous necklace that belonged to Madame de Pompadour was stolen.’

  ‘Was it now,’ said Rose, already moving purposefully towards a telephone. When Twitch came, there were a few things he could bring with him.

  Gwendolen had had a distressing day and was making up for it with several glasses of this delightfully spicy lemonade. Unfortunately the lemonade was beginning to wreak its awful revenge in several ways, one of which could not be ignored. With a regretful look at her glass, and a warning glance at Lord Beddington should he tamper with its contents while she was gone – she had observed his hand stealing towards it already – she rose to make her way upstairs to the ladies’ retiring room. She passed Egbert Rose. She stopped in front of him, leaning forward confidentially and giving him the full benefit of the satin décolletage.

  ‘Datchery,’ she announced. ‘He said he’d met Datchery.’

  ‘Who, ma’am?’ asked Rose, bewildered.

  She blinked. This man was supposed to be at Scotland Yard. ‘Sir Thomas,’ she answered indignantly. ‘My fiancé,’ glaring at Beatrice.

  ‘He’d met who?’

  ‘A character in The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Inspector,’ explained Beatrice kindly. ‘A mysterious person who comes along to solve the mystery after the disappearance of Edwin Drood himself.’

  ‘And did he, miss?’

  ‘No, because Dickens did not finish the book. He died.’

  ‘He was murdered,’ said Gwendolen definitely.

  Samuel Pipkin giggled. ‘Oh come, my dear lady, he died a natural death.’

  ‘Who?’ asked Rose, startled.

  ‘Dickens,’ said Samuel.

  ‘Thomas,’ said Gwendolen.

  ‘Where does Datchery come in?’ asked Rose impatiently.

  Angelina leaned forward to explain, leaving Gwendolen to slip away (almost literally) to resume her mission. She was back within minutes, pale in the face.

  ‘He’s there!’ she shrieked. ‘In the ladies’ retiring room!’

  ‘Who?’ Rose leapt up.

  ‘Datchery.’ She had some difficulty enunciating the name.

  ‘But who is it, ma’am? Sir Thomas didn’t say who Datchery was.’

  ‘No, no,’ she began to laugh hysterically. ‘This is the real Mr Datchery. He’s in Dickensian dress with a long beard, but he’s a young man really, sitting there in the ladies’ retiring room drinking hollands and writing—’

  ‘Oh!’ The landlord looked up cunningly. ‘That’s not Mr Datchery, ma’am. That’s Mr Dickens.’

  ‘Dickens?’ cried Angelina.

  ‘Well, his ghost at any rate.’

  ‘Ghost?’ said Rose and Auguste in unison. They had no liking for ghosts since their previous experience.

  ‘Sometimes he sits in here, sometimes upstairs, sometimes in the ladies’ retiring room. It all depends what he’s writing at the time.’

  ‘Why did he write his books in the ladies’ retiring room?’ enquired Auguste. This Dickens was a most curious man.

  The landlord regarded him pityingly. ‘I can see you don’t know your Dickens, sir. Or Broadstairs. It wasn’t a ladies’ retiring room when he was here. Part of the time he stayed in what’s now our hotel; it wasn’t even part of the hotel but a private house. We’ve expanded, sir. Expanded very much.’ His chest followed suit. ‘It’s not everyone can see him, of course. You’re very privileged, madam.’

  Gwendolen did not agree. She fainted.

  The female Lionisers left the rest of their hollands untouched and began to think in terms of returning to the hotel. The ladies’ retiring room remained unused.

  Passing through the foyer on a last check before retiring, Mr Multhrop found himself engulfed in a merry throng of post-hollands revellers, intent on beginning a new party. His reactions were mixed. While he welcomed this newfound enthusiasm for Broadstairs after the gloomy events of the past few days, this rowdy pink-faced band, hardly recognisable as the distinguished gathering of Literary Lionisers, was not to his taste. Outside the hotel he would have attributed such behaviour to day excursionist ’Arrys and ’Arriets and called the police. As it was, he was forced to his usu
al obsequious tolerance. Summoning a bleary-eyed waiter to serve further alcoholic beverages, he beat a strategic retreat, to the raucous sound of upraised voices trilling ‘Mid pleasures and gin-palaces . . . there’s no place like home.’ And that was where he devoutly wished them.

  The inhabitants of Blue Horizons were making quieter arrivals home, one by one.

  Alfred had inveigled Beatrice to take a stroll along the pier to gaze at the stars; he was in exalted mood, and felt daring enough to ask her for her answer. The kilted Scots figurehead loomed above them, his feet busily executing all the steps of a neat Highland fling when Alfred glanced up.

  ‘I’m afraid not, Alfred,’ was Beatrice’s reply.

  He stared at her bemusedly. ‘What?’ he said eventually and feebly.

  ‘No, Alfred,’ she said. ‘I do not wish to marry you.’

  ‘The shock of your father’s death. You need more time.’

  ‘It’s nothing to do with the shock of my father’s death. I do not wish to marry you. I never have.’

  ‘But—’ His mouth fell open like one of William and Joe’s larger fishy wares. Then he perceived the truth. ‘You think me a murderer,’ he cried.

  ‘Don’t be silly, Alfred,’ Beatrice snapped impatiently. ‘You’re not a murderer.’ Yet his expression as he looked at her and the strength with which he seized her arm made her uncomfortably aware of their isolated position. She wrenched her arm away, conscious of fear. What did she know of him after all? Alcohol can disguise, but sometimes reveal the true man. She turned, and abandoning dignity, hitched up her skirts and ran.

  Heinrich, reeling after several glasses of schnapps, held carefully on to Emily’s arm; whether for her protection or his, he did not question. Enthused by physical contact with his beloved, he suggested a stroll in the Victoria Gardens; Emily, unusually flushed, and equally enthused, agreed.

  By the time they reached the bandstand he was even more enthused with the charms of Miss Dawson. Not since Greta all those years ago had a woman seemed to him so desirable. Hollands had blotted out all inhibitions and worries. ‘Emily,’ he said huskily. ‘Emily.’

  ‘Yes, Heinrich?’ she breathed.