by Myers, Amy
‘Here comes Mr Datchery,’ murmured Rose.
Heinrich looked puzzled. ‘Nein, only the two of us were present. I see Sir Thomas before dinner on the Saturday evening. I remind him who I am. We quarrel again. He insults me and I know I have to kill him. Just as the duel used to be our customary method for such disputes, so now I will use the tools of my trade. I will use the food he eats to kill him.’
Auguste shuddered at this heresy. He could not believe it.
Rose regarded Heinrich noncommittally for a few moments. ‘Why did you decide to confess?’ he shot at him.
Heinrich blinked, taken aback. ‘Because,’ his eyes flickered to Auguste who was staring at him in suppressed rage at what he saw as personal betrayal, ‘I wished to spare further embarrassment to my colleagues. And to Mr Didier.’ Auguste did not look grateful for this consideration.
‘What do you think, Auguste?’ Rose asked wearily as Sergeant Stitch disappeared with Heinrich to Broadstairs police station, the clock chiming midnight.
‘What do I think?’ exploded Auguste. ‘I think he did not do it. Poison food? Never.’
‘My doubts are somewhat different,’ Rose said drily. ‘In my experience murderers who confess are longing to tell you why they did it. Eager to justify themselves, so they tell you that first. They don’t go into a long litany explaining exactly how they did it, or not till later anyway. But someone who was confessing to a murder he hadn’t committed might feel he had to explain the mechanics first.’
Auguste was still fuming, however, on the matter of adulterated soup. ‘My friend Freimüller is a chef, and he loves his art. I do not think it possible he would ruin food with poison. Can you imagine Mr Dickens using pages of his manuscript to start a fire? Can you imagine Michelangelo pushing over “La Pieta” to crush a foe? Or Mr Steinway using piano wire to strangle an enemy? The artist does not use his own work for evil purposes.’
‘He says he did it, he had reason to do it and that sounded genuine enough. Real emotion there. And he could have done it. That will be enough for the Yard.’ Rose looked at Auguste squarely: ‘I don’t have any choice other than to charge him. So if we’re right, we haven’t much time to lose.’
‘At least we know who Mrs Figgis-Hewett’s Datchery was. Remember she said Sir Thomas had told her Datchery had returned?’
‘Now he’s our Datchery as well. The joker in the pack. I suppose,’ Rose added hopefully, ‘this Mr Datchery didn’t murder Edwin Drood himself, did he?’
‘No,’ said Auguste sadly. ‘Most people do not believe so. He is a device to help solve the murder.’
‘Let’s hope it works for us too,’ said Rose grimly.
Auguste walked back to Blue Horizons, tired, his mind in turmoil. Everything fitted; the case should be over, yet like a soufflé that failed to rise, this dénouement was soggy, unsatisfying.
Sid opened the door into the house, which seemed bleak and unwelcoming as Auguste walked in, no delicious scents emanating from the kitchens. No one had the heart for cooking that evening. No one else was around; they were either in bed or still out. Sid whistled when he saw Auguste’s face.
‘You look like the broken-hearted milkman, me old china. Wot’s Polly Perkins been doin’ to you?’
‘Alas, it is not Polly Perkins, Sid, whoever that lady might be. I only wish it were an affair of the heart. This is a night made for lovers, not for murder.’
Sid’s face was suddenly serious. ‘There’s not many of us, Mr Didier. It’ll be cleared soon.’
‘Herr Freimüller has confessed to the murders,’ Auguste told him slowly.
‘’Im? Blimey!’ Sid stared. ‘Now you does surprise me. Still, he wouldn’t’ve confessed if he ’adn’t dunnit, would he? No one would, stands to reason.’
‘And he had good reason to kill Sir Thomas,’ Auguste said absently, his tired brain trying to grapple with an elusive thought that strayed through his mind, something to do with Edith, or with Mr Multhrop. Or was it something Sid had just said?
‘Tell me again what you said as I came in, Sid,’ he said eagerly.
‘The ol’ broken-hearted milkman?’
‘No, you added something.’
‘Polly Perkins?’ offered Sid. ‘Nothing else, me old china.’
‘China. That’s it.’
‘China plate – me old mate. Rhyming slang.’
But Auguste was no longer listening. The poison that killed Sir Thomas was not in any of the food. It was on the china. It was as simple as that. To Sid’s indignation, Auguste hugged him in true French fashion.
‘Sid, you are indeed my old mate,’ he assured him gratefully. ‘In fact, on this occasion, you are everybody’s old mate.’
The simplicity of the evening, however, had vanished by morning. What had seemed straightforward was now revealed as complex, as Auguste mulled it over. The atropine was in crystal form. True, the crystals were colourless, but they were large, not small. How had they not been seen? He himself had inspected the china and table before the dinner commenced. If the crystals were already in bowls or on the plates before the food was added, they would have been obvious, if not to him then certainly to the eater. True, the soup – or indeed the entrée – would have melted the crystals, but they would have been seen before that. And did he not remember that the analyst, according to Egbert, had remarked that atropine required quite a lot of hot water to dissolve it? Would the sauce in the entrée have been sufficient? Or even the soup, come to that. The crystals dissolved in alcohol much more easily, but surely any liquid placed in a glass dish beforehand would have been obvious? Yet it still might prove the answer. His thoughts came back to one person. If only he could see just how, and why, it had been done.
One by one his pupils descended to breakfast. Alfred was first to remark on the absentee. ‘Where’s old Heinrich?’ he enquired. ‘Not up yet?’
‘I am afraid he will not be taking breakfast with us today,’ said Auguste.
‘He hasn’t been murdered, has he?’ asked Algernon, alarmed.
Emily dropped her egg spoon and screamed.
‘No,’ said Auguste hastily, one eye on Emily, ‘but he has confessed to the murders.’
Emily’s scream subsided into a low moan. Alice rushed to her, herself pale with shock. ‘Have you some smelling salts, Mr Didier?’ she cried indignantly. ‘The poor girl has had a terrible blow. You know how friendly she is with Mr Freimüller.’
‘Some camomile tea,’ suggested Auguste weakly, for once at a loss.
‘Stronger,’ said Alice scathingly, fixing him with a steely eye of English determination. Brandy and smelling salts appeared from different directions.
‘Old Heinrich murdered Sir Thomas?’ repeated Alfred, bewildered, realisation coming late. ‘Why?’
‘Revenge for an old quarrel years ago over a woman.’
Emily broke into loud gasping sobs.
‘I think I’d better take her upstairs,’ said Alice firmly.
Auguste felt ostracised by the indignant glares that were directed at him, as though by breaking the news he shared responsibility.
‘We’re down to four,’ observed Algernon brightly, now reduced to all-male company.
Alfred looked at him disdainfully. ‘I don’t think that’s the right way to look at it, Peckham.’
‘What is the right way, when one of your number ensures one of the others kicks the bucket?’
This question baffled Alfred.
‘Nah,’ said Sid, suddenly intervening. ‘I don’t see old Heinrich as a poisoner. A German spy, yes, and Pegg his English agent. Yes.’ He’d been reading the works of William Le Queux. ‘Poison? Nah.’
‘Why should he lie about it?’ enquired Algernon.
‘Perhaps he’s one of those eccentrics,’ offered Alfred, ‘who confess to crimes because they were there at the time.’
‘Perhaps.’ said Auguste.
‘Can we all go home tomorrow?’ Alfred continued hopefully. ‘Now that it’s over?’
By the time Auguste arrived at the Imperial, Rose had already been in action for several hours. Twitch had been despatched to London to visit the German Embassy and its stables. Naseby had been given charge of a subdued Heinrich.
‘You’ll be leaving today,’ said Naseby, trying to keep a query out of his voice. ‘Now that we’ve got the murderer – or so you say,’ he added bitterly, still resenting the loss of Didier in his cells.
‘No,’ replied Rose simply. ‘Soon but not yet.’ Naseby’s face fell. ‘Too many loose ends,’ explained Rose kindly.
As far as Naseby was concerned all the loose ends had been tied into the neat little granny knots he always relied on, and for the life of him he couldn’t see what Rose considered loose. But he wasn’t going to ask him.
‘You’ll be going then, Inspector Rose,’ asked Mr Multhrop happily, ‘now you have the murderer in custody?’
‘Not yet,’ Rose informed him drily. ‘One or two details to sort out.’
Mr Multhrop subsided. He should have known he couldn’t be so lucky.
‘You still hold Freimüller?’ asked Auguste as he arrived at the Imperial and joined Egbert.
He nodded. ‘He’s still talking about duels and laudanum in the coffee. Maintaining he went into a blind rage at the sound of Throgmorton’s name and resolved to get his own back in his own kind of duel.’
‘An uneven one,’ observed Auguste. ‘That is what is strange. Have you told Miss Throgmorton yet?’
‘She’s going into the Factory tomorrow morning to see Twitch. Not that I can see she can help us more than she has. She wasn’t born when the Freimüller affair took place – if it did of course, we’ve still to check it – and she was a child when the groom went off with the bonds. If that’s still relevant. His widow must be a rich woman now,’ he added absently.
‘It depends on what happened out there. Did she murder her husband for money or for some other reason?’
Rose stared thoughtfully at Auguste. ‘That’s a point. I’ll get on to Inspector Chesnais myself.’ He eyed Mr Multhrop’s telephone with trepidation. The thought of shouting all the way to Paris was daunting. ‘She’d be about twenty-eight or -nine now, this Elizabeth Stebbins.’
‘We have two – no, three young ladies of that age,’ observed Auguste.
Rose nodded. ‘Including Mrs Langham, yes, but I don’t see our elegant Mrs Langham as the former wife of a groom, do you, for all she knows France and French?’
‘No,’ said Auguste. ‘I agree.’
‘That leaves Miss Fenwick and Miss Dawson.’
‘There is a fondness between Mr Freimüller and Miss Dawson that I have noticed since our arrival here.’
‘It would have to be a very great fondness to put a rope round his own neck,’ observed Rose ironically. ‘A governess and an army officer’s daughter,’ he said, looking at his notes. ‘Check out their backgrounds, did you, when you took them on?’
‘Mon ami, you have no idea of business,’ said Auguste indignantly. ‘I run a school. They are paying pupils. I do not employ them. They do not need references.’
Rose laughed. ‘You just need to know whether they can make a coq au vin, eh?’
Auguste inclined his head. ‘That is not such a bad requisite for a school of cooks.’
Beatrice Throgmorton stalked into Scotland Yard on the Monday morning and was duly escorted to an office where sat Sergeant Stitch, flushed with importance, trying Rose’s chair for size. Next year all this would be his, or he was a Dutchman. He rose to his feet and bowed Miss Throgmorton into the visitor’s chair with excessive politeness.
‘What is all this about, Sergeant?’ She had his rank duly noted.
‘I am instructed to tell you, Miss Throgmorton, that we have your father’s murderer under lock and key. You can sleep easy at nights now.’
It had not occurred to Beatrice to do anything else.
‘Who was it?’ she enquired bluntly.
‘Herr Heinrich Freimüller,’ said Stitch impressively. ‘One of the cooks.’
‘What reason would a cook have to kill my father?’ she asked, amazed.
‘It appears, so he says, miss, that he fought a duel with your father in Germany many years ago and vowed his revenge,’ breathed Stitch, almost betraying emotion. This was very like The Prisoner of Zenda. He hoped the lady would not faint at hearing of these dark doings.
She did not. ‘Do you mean that man my father told me of – he turned up in Broadstairs?’
Even Stitch had to confess it sounded remarkable. ‘Yes,’ he said firmly. ‘Did you recognise him?’
‘How on earth could I do that?’ asked Miss Throgmorton impatiently. ‘I wasn’t born thirty years ago.’
‘Inspector Rose said,’ Stitch hastily moved the blame, ‘he had the impression you might have recognised somebody from the past that evening in the Albion Hotel, besides the gardener from the château. Was it Mr Pegg?’
‘No,’ said Beatrice. ‘It was a woman.’
‘A woman,’ breathed Stitch. This was true detection. Promotion advanced towards him. Feverishly he scrabbled for his notes and read out a list: ‘Mrs Langham, Miss Fenwick, Miss Dawson. Any of those names familiar?’
‘Mrs Langham I’ve met of course. The other two mean nothing, though I think we had a cook called Dawson once.’
‘A man or a woman?’
‘A woman. Years ago. Even if you had not already caught your murderer, Sergeant Stitch, old Mrs Dawson would hardly be of use to you.’
‘Old?’
‘She was about sixty when she left. I don’t remember what exactly, but I believe she left under some cloud.’
‘I don’t think,’ said Rose grumpily, ‘I’ll ever feel the same about the seaside.’
Edith, visiting the shops for the umpteenth time, was inclined to agree with him. She did not even have Mrs Figgis-Hewett’s company since she had informed Edith with a flush of excitement on her cheeks that she was to accompany Lord Beddington to luncheon in Ramsgate. He had invited her, she emphasised, and wasn’t that nice? To take her mind off dear Thomas, she added hastily, in case there should be any doubt as to the reasons for her acceptance. Edith had agreed that it was indeed for the best; she spoke truthfully, considering that another gentleman friend might be the best tonic for Gwendolen. And from what she had seen of Lord Beddington, a union with one who could sleep peacefully throughout the eruption of Vesuvius might be most suitable to withstand the onslaught of Gwendolen’s voice.
Fortunately, as Edith trailed into Bobby’s in Margate for the sixth time, she had a feeling she would not be here much longer. Firstly, someone had confessed to the murder. True, Egbert still seemed to be investigating the case, but she had known Egbert for a long time: whenever a case was nearing its finale there was an inner excitement about it like a coiled spring. And that excitement had been there since yesterday.
‘I’ve just had Twitch shouting down the telephone at me. Nothing of interest about Freimüller yet.’ Rose related the conversation to Auguste, commenting gloomily, ‘Twitch is getting too lively by half. I’ll have to get him his promotion in self-defence. Only thing puts me off is that I’ll most likely be put up to Chief Inspector. I’d still have him round my neck.’
‘Why should Freimüller confess?’ asked Auguste. ‘Do you think he could really be the murderer and hopes to make us think that someone else did it?’
Rose was doubtful. ‘He’d have to be very confident. Suppose it was a Naseby case. He’d be only too happy to press ahead. He wouldn’t want to go upsetting any apple carts. No, I think the pot is boiling – it remains to see what the stew is like.’
‘My friend, if you must use cooking metaphors,’ said Auguste severely, ‘please use them properly. The pot is smiling, not boiling, and as to apple carts, these are not easy to—’ He broke off.
‘What’s the matter? Don’t you like stale sandwic
hes?’ Rose eyed Mr Multhrop’s offering, brought into the office for them both, without enthusiasm.
‘No, it is an idea, just an idea . . .’ Auguste thought all round it, turned it upside down to examine it, tested each ingredient. Rose waited patiently. This had happened before and he’d learned to value the process, however maddening it was at the time.
‘I do not see quite how or why,’ said Auguste, at last and unhappily. ‘It makes no sense, but nevertheless I shall visit the library.’ He told Rose what was in his mind.
Rose’s face was alert. ‘I wonder. I just wonder.’
‘My friend,’ Auguste told him, ‘it could fit as tight as a Toulouse sausage skin.’
The Prince of Wales was at luncheon at Sandringham. For once it did not disturb him in the least that Alexandra was late. He was a happy man; he was a man about to leave for Marienbad in three days’ time, where all the cares of this dull world where Kaisers won British yacht races would be forgotten. He would forsake dull court circles. At least in Marienbad, society was diluted with a few more colourful characters. Even if it was all family, there were Montenegrans, Hapsburgs, Romanovs – he wondered if Tatiana Maniovska would be there this year. With the death of the Czarevitch, the Romanovs would be in mourning. Still, Tatiana lived in Paris, not Russia, so she might be there. He hoped so. He was fond of Tatiana and he hadn’t seen her since Cannes last year. He frowned. That brought back a few unwelcome memories. Wasn’t that where that cook fellow claimed to have met him? Come to think of it, he owed the cook fellow something for smuggling him out of the hotel last week. Deuced awkward from all points of view if he’d still been there when police and newsmen and so on came along. He’d actually been sitting next to Throgmorton, after all. Goodness knows what Mama would have said. Having to take luncheon with her again the next day at Osborne House seemed a small penance to pay compared with having to listen to her strictures on the frequency with which he got involved in scandals of the seamier kind. And it was never his fault, that was what aggrieved him so much. He did his best to keep out of trouble, but it seemed inexorably to follow him.
