Murder in Pug's Parlour Read Free Page A

awaiting conversion into works of art; the iceboxes would soon be full of the sorbets to quench hot passions aroused by the dancing; the game larders were being stripped of their contents in preparation for the forthcoming culinary delights.
    As Their Graces pored with delighted exclamations and the occasional frown over the menus, Auguste wondered how they had taken Greeves’ death. Had the dread word of murder been mentioned to them? And, if so, did they feel it pertained to them? Or, as it had taken place the other side of the green baize door, was it to them simply a parlour game of Guess the Murderer, in which they were concerned simply as bystanders? Not that murder was a stranger to this house of aristocracy. There had been murders a-plenty in the past – Ethel had relished telling him of them on the dark nights when they could wander unobserved in the huge park of Stockbery Towers. There had been the unfortunate case of the ninth Duke’s sister, a little strange from birth, who had stolen by night to the coachman’s dwelling with a long kitchen knife; the third Duke’s younger brother whom no one had set eyes on after the horrible murder of My Lord of Lyme, his rival at court in the affections of Good Queen Bess. And the—
    ‘What the devil’s this, Did’yer?’ An imperious finger was pointed at the carefully written list.
    ‘Crayfish, Your Grace, from the River Len.’
    The Duke snorted. ‘Why the devil can’t we have some of that
écrevisses à la provençale
? Something with a bit of taste.’
    ‘
Faites simple
, Your Grace. Do not complicate matters,’ said Auguste deferentially. ‘That’s what the maître, Monsieur Escoffier always said. In Kent, crayfish. In Provence,
écrevisses
.’
    ‘Why the devil I ever brought you over, I don’t know,’ grunted the Duke. ‘Haven’t had a decent sauce in weeks.’
    The battle of the menu won, Auguste made his way to the housekeeper’s room where a further pot of lemon tea was being consumed and tongues were loosed in earnest.
    ‘He said he wasn’t satisfied,’ said Hobbs, alarmed. ‘That means—’
    ‘Foul play,’ breathed Cricket.
    ‘Nonsense,’ wept Mrs Hankey. ‘How could it have been? It were an accident. Must have bin the Scotch woodcock. His little savoury he was so fond of. That boy, it’s all his fault. He prepared it.’
    Auguste shrugged. ‘How could one poison someone with anchovy fillets and cream, Mrs Hankey? Accidentally?’
    Much as he might privately consider all savouries as a poison, an assault on the tastebuds at the end of a meal, it was difficult to imagine them as a vehicle for a virulent poison, especially at the hands of a fifteen-year-old boy. As steward’s-room boy it was Jackson’s job to prepare the savoury and coffee in the pantry adjoining the Parlour, but it was difficult to see how poison could have been accidentally added to them.
    ‘You mark my words,’ said Cricket, though hardly anyone ever did. ‘They’ll find he was an arsenic eater – like that Mr Maybrick. Don’t you worry, Mrs Hankey. I agree. Must have been an accident. The doctor’s wrong. He took a bit too much.’
    These words failed to cheer her. ‘Arsenic eater,’ Mrs Hankey said scornfully. ‘What would he want to eat thatfor? Unless someone fed it to him of course.’ Her eyes travelled towards May Fawcett. ‘Some people were bent on making his life a misery – knowing he was pledged to me, that is.’
    May Fawcett was flushed but uncowed. She venomously spat out: ‘If that’s meant for me, Mrs Hankey, I would point out, if you please, that far from making Mr Greeves’ life a misery, I was the one spot of fun that Archibald had.’
    Auguste felt a shiver of apprehension. Every normal day, he and his fellows got on reasonably well, a few sour remarks, nothing special, a united band of upper servants. Then comes a death, a violent one, and suddenly all is changed. It was like a sauce; you add one final ingredient and the