The Devil's Larder Read Free

members in the dining
rooms. ‘Not only is this common theft,’ the manager said, ‘it’s also unhygienic in the extreme. If the gentlemen had required dirty fingers in their meal, they would have
ordered them. And had they wanted you to join them here for dinner, they would have had a card delivered to your home.’
    The waiter lost his job, of course. But sacking him was not enough for the club manager. He was a man who prided himself on his systems. And clearly these were failing. How many waiters helped
themselves to members’ food? he wondered. How many meals were so diminished and defiled before they reached the tables? How could he put an end to it?
    He chuckled when the answer came to him. A sharp idea. A witty one. He added his new rule to the list on the staffroom door: ‘During their passage from the kitchens to the dining rooms
with members’ orders of food and drink, all waiters are directed to whistle. Any break in whistling longer than that required to draw breath will attract a fine or a dismissal.’
    Now he could sit inside his office, the door a touch ajar, and monitor the traffic to the dining rooms. He got to recognize the waiters from their whistling. There were the warblers, who merely
offered a seamless trill without a melody. And then there were the songsters, addicts of the operetta and the music hall, or country lads with harvest tunes. One waiter specialized in hymns.
Another always piped the wedding march, a touch too fast. There were, as well, the irritating ones, who sounded either as if they’d lost their dogs, or as if they were impatient
stationmasters.
    Nevertheless, the manager adored his latest rule. It was the cleverest control he’d ever exerted over his employees. He’d stopped them eating members’ meats for free and also,
he judged, he’d caused the waiters to appear a little foolish to themselves. And that was no bad thing.
    The members liked the system, too. It jollied up their club. And there was always early warning when their food was on its way. A risqué anecdote or some recent slander could be put on
hold until the waiter had come and gone. A gentleman, dining quietly in a private room with someone other than his wife, might be glad to hear the wedding march approaching and be grateful for the
chance to disengage.
    All very satisfying, then, until the day the manager discovered gravy on the palm of his own hand and on his shirt cuff. Still slightly warm. It smelled – and tasted – of lamb, that
day’s select dish. It was a mystery. He’d not been in the kitchens for an hour or so. He’d not been in the dining rooms. He’d only been upstairs, replacing magazines and
newspapers in the reading lounge. He retraced his steps, but found no clues until he was coming down again and held on to the bottom stair-post to swing himself into the service corridor, like some
hero in a play, his private vanity. Again, his hand was dark with meat.
    It was not clear to him at once why there should be fresh gravy on the flat top of the post. It was just possible, he supposed, that there was some innocent explanation, a spill perhaps. But,
still, he would be vigilant.
    For the next day or two, he took to stepping to his office door and peering down the corridor whenever he heard whistling. At last his worst fears were confirmed. A waiter passed, a tray of
lunches poised above his shoulder. But still there was the pungent smell of pork hanging in the corridor. The man had left a nice chop on the stair-post. He would have eaten it during his
unwhistling return had not the manager waylaid him with his dismissal papers and thus robbed the club of selections from The Scarlet Veil .
    A tougher system was required, of course. The waiters were now called upon to whistle on their way back to the kitchens with their empty trays as well as on their journeys out. It was a step too
far. The service corridor was bustling now with competing and discordant tunes. The members