Chef Maurice and a Spot of Truffle (Chef Maurice Mysteries Book 1) Read Free

would anyone—apart from a nut like you, Maurice—want to break in here?” Arthur thought about what his friend had said about the broken lock. “Twice, even, assuming Friday’s break-in was the same person?”
    Chef Maurice nodded. “That seems correct. Yet it is most strange that nothing was taken.”
    Arthur wandered into the cottage’s other ground-floor room, a study-cum-living-room littered with books on plants and herbs, as well as partially labelled dried specimens and scraps of paper with scrawled notes and drawings.
    He found Horace attempting to take a nap in a battered dog basket four times too small for him.
    Nothing looked particularly valuable, although it was hard to tell amongst all this—
    “Aha! Regarde , mon ami! ” shouted a voice from the kitchen.
    Arthur hurried back through to find Chef Maurice with his head wedged into the bottom of the fridge.
    “There was a certain smell when I was here before,” he said, voice muffled by the fridge’s contents, “and this nose, it never lies!” In his hand, he waved what looked like a small lumpy potato.
    “Um. Very good.” Arthur wondered how one was meant to test for concussion, and, more importantly, how to avoid explaining to the doctor exactly how one’s friend had come to be hit on the head by someone else’s kitchen table.
    “Now, Maurice,” he said carefully, “put down that potato and let’s—”
    “Potato?” Chef Maurice backed out of the fridge and gave the lump an appreciative sniff. “This is no potato! Regarde .”
    Arthur opened his mouth to suggest rapid medical treatment, but stopped. A familiar, alluring, pungently earthy yet not unpleasant scent filled the air.
    “Wait a minute, is that . . . a . . . ”
    Chef Maurice gently scratched the surface of the lump and the wafting aroma got stronger. “You are correct, mon ami . If I am not mistaken, this is a very good, and very expensive, white Alba truffle. And look!”
    He pulled a rough sack out of the fridge and held it open. Inside was a heap of fat, pristine white truffles. Altogether, they must have been worth tens of thousands of pounds.
    Arthur had a bad feeling about this. But feelings could be dealt with later, once they got out of here.
    First, he had to get Chef Maurice to let go of the sack of truffles.
    * * *
    Back in the moonlit kitchens of Le Cochon Rouge, Chef Maurice brushed the last specks of soil off his newly acquired prize, with all the love and care of an archaeologist in a hitherto undiscovered royal tomb.
    It was only a single truffle, Arthur having forcibly restrained him from ‘liberating’ more than one sample, but it was a beauty, nonetheless. He lined a small wooden crate with straw, tucked the truffle in and surrounded it with eggs to keep it company.
    Balancing on an upturned bucket, he placed the box reverentially onto the highest shelf in the walk-in fridge, then went to bed.
    Perhaps if he’d known just how much trouble these truffles were going to cause in the very near future, he might not have drifted off so easily.
    But as things were, sleep engulfed him like autumn fog the minute his head hit the pillow.
    That night, he dreamed of truffles.
    * * *
    Hamilton was dreaming too. But his was not a good dream.
    In the silence of his cell, his sleep-propelled legs kicked uselessly against the straw and shredded paper that littered the concrete floor.
    It was a nightmare about bacon.
    Again.

Chapter 4
    The next morning, Patrick and Alf, Le Cochon Rouge’s gangly commis chef, arrived at work to find Chef Maurice bustling round the kitchens, humming to himself.
    “Everything all right, chef?” said Patrick. His boss was not, by any definition, a morning person. In fact, there were probably sloths deep in the Amazon jungle that could be considered more morning people than Chef Maurice. That said, sloths weren’t generally known for indulging in a large glass of cognac most evenings, which presumably helped their morning