Murder At The Masque

by Amy Myers

Genres: General Fiction; Historical Fiction; Mystery

Synopsis

The fourth Auguste Didier mystery. When master chef Auguste Didier decides he needs a rest in his native Cannes he is convinced that there at least he will not encounter murder which seems recently to have stalked him as inexorably as Jack the Ripper his victims. No cold hand of violent death could possibly touch this delightful place of sun and warmth... But back in London Inspector Egbert Rose of Scotland Yard is investigating a series of jewel burglaries. Only when he meets the sixth victim, ballerina Natalia Kallinkova, does he realise this is no ordinary case. For each missing jewel had been encased in an exquisiteFabergé egg, the gift of the Grand Duke Igor of Russia to his ex-mistresses. Worse, he discovers there is a seventh egg...and Inspector Rose sets off hot-foot to warn its owner - in Cannes. There, the Gentlemen (the English, under the captaincy of the Prince of Wales) are about to engage the Players (the rest of the world) in a to-the-death cricket match. And where such passions are raised, murder is sure to follow...

Release date: October 24, 2013

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 247

Sample

Auguste Didier stepped off the Calais-Mediterranean Express and sniffed. He gave a deep sigh of satisfaction. Ah, the perfume of the air. The scents of the pines of the Esterel mountains and the hillside flowers still filled the air of his native village with their warm magic. Some said Cannes belonged only to the English, that it had become the new battleground of Europe with the Romanovs to the east on the hill of la Californie and the English to the west on the route de Fréjus. But to those who really knew it, Cannes was still Cannes, the small fishing village that over the centuries had seen invaders come and go, Romans, Greeks, Saracens, Italians. Here he had been born in a small house on the hillside of Mont Chevalier, gone to the small school in the Rue du Barri. Here he had been apprenticed to Le Maître, the great Auguste Escoffier. Cannes was in his blood, a village blessed by the heavens.

‘Murder! It’s murder, I say.’

Auguste spun round at the shrill sound of an undoubtedly English aristocratic voice disturbing the peace of the south. He smiled with relief when, peering curiously outside into the Place de la Gare, he saw a familiar scene. Skirts rustling in indignation, an English lady was waving her lace-edged pink parasol threateningly at an uncomprehending cabbie who was merely persuading his bored horse by time-honoured means to begin yet another journey to the Hôtel du Parc. Or perhaps to the Hôtel Gonnet, though with the seaside front position the latter was not so popular. It would not suffice for this stiffly corseted martinet with her fashionable trained carriage dress.

Murder indeed. Auguste laughed at himself. He must have murder on the brain.

‘A holiday,’ the secretary of Plum’s Club for Gentlemen had said to its maître chef reproachfully. ‘You need a holiday, Monsieur Didier. It isn’t like you to forget the truffles in the Chicken Bayonnaise.’

There had been A Complaint. About his food. And moreover it had been justified. Auguste had been appalled. How could it have happened? He had briefly contemplated suicide, and had decided against it. Honour could be restored another way. After his holiday, they would be waiting for him with open arms – or rather mouths – after six weeks of Monsieur Archibald Binks’s efforts. Pah! Trained in the Marshall School. The school gave excellent training for cooking treacle pudding no doubt. But the gentlemen of Plum’s required la vrai cuisine. Auguste gloated with satisfaction. He would return and cook them delicacies such as they had never imagined, inspired by the perfumes and tastes of his native land.

The smell of the coffee from the café tabac in the railway station recalled him from theorising on how to transform Alexis Soyer’s turkey à la Nelson into something edible – the sauce, he wondered, was that the mistake? Omit the tomato perhaps? He found his billet de baggage, exchanged ritual imprecations with a porter who tried to relieve him of his hand luggage with the practised ease of the French, bypassed the crowd of English hiverneurs, arranged for the delivery of his modest suitcases to his parents’ home and walked out into the Place de la Gare, a happy man. He was home.

‘Fiacre, monsieur?’

A cab? No. He would walk. Absorb the smell of the south. His mother had once told him that when the Empress Marie-Alexandrovna of Russia had come to Cannes nineteen years ago in 1879, her last words on leaving were, ‘Let me smell once more that perfumed air . . .’ The warmth was in his nostrils, beguiling his senses, for all it was only the beginning of March, as he crossed the Place into the Rue de la Gare, heading for Le Suquet, the small house in the Rue du Barri and six weeks of pure bliss.

For Cannes had one other blessing that London, delightful though it was, seemed to lack, at least as far as he was concerned. For Auguste, London was inextricably bound up with murder, which seemed to stalk him as inexorably as Jack the Ripper his victims.

Not long after he had been instrumental (he tried to put it modestly even to himself) in solving the murders at Stockbery Towers in Kent, he had become the chef at the restaurant of the Galaxy Theatre in the Strand – and murder came too. Delightful though Plum’s was, he felt that at the age of thirty-eight he should consider his future carefully. That dream, the dream of every maître, to own his own restaurant, even a hotel, was but a dream yet. As seemingly unobtainable as that other dream of Tatiana, his beautiful Russian princess in Paris. His, he thought ruefully. But she could never be his. He was a cook, albeit a maître, and she a princess.

But, he had told himself firmly, one cannot produce a dish for a Grimod jury without peeling a potato. And Plum’s in St James’s Square was a potato très sympathique. Alas, incredibly, in that place of quiet gentlemanly retreat from the world, murder followed once more. True, all these melancholy events had brought him into contact with cher Egbert, Inspector Egbert Rose of Scotland Yard, but murder was murder; it tore at the emotions. He needed a holiday.

And no cold hand of murder could possibly touch this delightful place of sun and warmth.

Early March in London was not a time of beautiful perfumes and scented air. It was a time when the skies were grey, even when they could be glimpsed through the smoke from chimneys that failed to disperse but hung loweringly over the blackened buildings. Muddy pavements were cluttered with equally unsunny Londoners – at least in this part of London – as the hansom continued its journey towards Wapping.

Pulling his greatcoat firmly around him, as the hansom arrived at his destination, Inspector Egbert Rose paid the driver his two shillings, having successfully won the battle of whether or not the journey was within the four-mile radius, by demanding to see his Book of Distances. He ignored the look of distaste at the customary meagre Scotland Yard allowance for tipping and picked his way along the river front. Accustomed to this street from his days on the beat, now thankfully well over twenty years behind him, the filth and smells were no surprise to him; the Thames looked an evil thoroughfare on this bleak day. Peabody could have spent some of his millions building a few new homes round here all right. Place hadn’t changed in a century, if that.

A swarming den of thieving villains, thought Rose grimly, as he pushed open the door of The Seamen’s Rest and surveyed the assembled company. A riverside pub would obviously be packed with seamen, and it looked like the scum of the earth had gravitated to this flash-house. Every villain on the Thames Police’s books – together with Lascars, Arabs, Chinese – all stopped in mid-talk as he entered. They all knew a crusher when they saw one. Especially a jack.

Only the publican, a middle-aged gentleman with impressive Newgate-knockers sidewhiskers, seemed unperturbed as he carefully inspected a glass, whistling ‘The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo’ in a thoughtful manner.

‘Ah, Higgins,’ Rose said blandly. ‘I’ve come about those Fabergé Easter Eggs again.’ He believed in the direct approach.

The publican dropped the glass, then fielded it as expertly as the great W. G. Grace himself. ‘Now now, Inspector. I’ve got my reputation to think of,’ he said indulgently. ‘Don’t want my customers to think I’m running a swells’ dolly-shop—’ His voice swelled in righteous indignation. ‘You will have your little jokes, Inspector. If it’s about that licence, you’d best come in here.’ A broad hand firmly ushered Rose behind the scenes, after its owner’s stentorian shout for ‘Ma!’ They were followed by interested and wary eyes.

‘It ain’t all perlice I’d invite into my home,’ Higgins pointed out.

Rose believed him, glancing round. The room was plentifully though not ostentatiously adorned with the benefits of Higgins’s trade as the biggest fence in London – ‘international trade welcomed’ (the pub conveniently near the docks for overseas business).

‘Muriel,’ Higgins yelled – this time to his wife.

So there was going to be business, Rose thought. Muriel was only summoned when something big was on. The lady appeared, simpering as if Rose were royalty. It was a misleading facade. Were it not for the fact that Rose had once viewed Muriel in full combat bargaining with the toughest cracksman in London, he would have put her down as an unlikely mate for the shrewd James Higgins. Since then, closer attention on his part had revealed her to be if not the brains behind the business, at least the treasurer.

‘Any news for me on those eggs?’ inquired Rose, pushing aside the leaves of an over-excited aspidistra, to sit in a chair surrounded by photographs of all the little Higginses framed in interestingly high-quality silver frames. It had been a long shot, but Higgins had been known to part with information if it suited his book. And Rose’s usual channels of information had yielded nothing.

Higgins shook his head regretfully. ‘Nah. ’Ad you asked me about Lady Becker’s ruby suspenders, or the old Duke’s cuff-links with the naughty cameos, I might’ve obliged. But eggs? Nah. Out of my class.’

‘You, Higgins? Nothing too hot to handle, that’s your line.’

Muriel interposed on behalf of her husband.

‘Inspector, ’oo wants an egg everyone is going to recognise?’ Her hands resting in her lap, she could have been presiding at an At Home.

‘Abroad?’

‘The Continong? Nah. Mind you, as one pal to another . . .’ Higgins paused, a beaming smile extending almost as far as the sidewhiskers.

‘No pal of yours, Higgins,’ Rose reminded him blandly.

‘Working mates, then. Nah, this ’ere cat burglar of yours. ’Igh-society lad, seems to me. Don’t see ’im in the Ratcliffe ’Ighway pinching old Ma Thomas’s tea caddy. And where does ’Igh Society hang out this time of year?’

Rose looked blank. ‘Hunting?’ he ventured.

‘Nah.’ Higgins tapped his pipe on the table impressively. ‘Cannes, that’s where they go. Down to the old Riviera.’ An enormous wink impressed on Rose that something of importance was being conveyed to him.

Half London society seemed to own one of these Fabergé eggs, thought Rose gloomily as he left, and certainly over-pessimistically. Someone had decided to scoop the pool. Why?

He’d been on the case for weeks now and was getting no nearer to presenting the Chief with any kind of solution. Meanwhile the thefts continued. Six in all now. He felt rather as he had done in Hampton Court Maze when he and Mrs Rose took his sister Ethel’s two youngest. All very interesting, but how do you reach the middle? The middle of this case, if the interviews he’d had so far were anything to go by, was very securely hidden . . .

Rose, assumed to have knowledge of the mysterious ways of the aristocracy after his successful solving of the cases at Stockbery Towers and Plum’s Club for Gentlemen, had with some relief on the part of his superiors been handed the task of discovering who had been carrying out a series of outrageous jewel thefts. The husbands were decidedly well placed in society, and Lord Westbourne in particular had made his views plain. The jewels must be found: and quickly. Seemed straightforward enough, Rose had thought – until he had begun his usual inquiries. Nothing. Not a whisper on the villains’ network.

‘And you know what that means, Stitch.’

His subordinate, known privately as Twitch, was eager to shine.

‘They’re all in it together?’ he suggested eagerly.

Rose regarded him sourly, and Stitch’s overdue promotion went back a few months. ‘Ever known any case where the lads stick together? All of them? Remember the Great Jewel Robbery in ’ninety-four? Princess Soltykoff out at Slough. The whispers came through then all right.’

Stitch fell into offended silence.

‘No,’ Rose meditated. ‘We’ve got an amateur on the job. Or a newcomer.’

‘Still got to get rid of the swag,’ Stitch pointed out, his interest revived.

‘Very true, Stitch. Very true. I think our friend Higgins might be the man . . .’

James Higgins had on Rose’s first visit to Wapping presented the face of a man with no more on his mind than the pouring of the next glass of porter. It had taken all Rose’s powers of persuasion, followed by threats, to extract an offer of ‘keeping a lug open’ on the subject of missing rubies. A second, hasty, visit to Wapping was required, however after Rose’s conversation with the sixth and latest victim . . .

Natalia Kallinkova, former supreme dancer of the St Petersburg Imperial Ballet, having now taken her ten-year benefit performance rewards and acquired a London residence, was taking the theft with more equanimity than her sisters in sorrow. A slight woman in her late twenties, she had sparkled round the room as she danced from one side to the other, pointing out the wreckage wrought by the intruder. Rose, dispatched by the Yard on a now familiar journey, leaned out of the third-floor window overlooking the garden far beneath, noting the drainpipe and small balconies up which the burglar had climbed to gain entry. His head began to swim and he thankfully drew it in. Must have a head for heights, this gentleman.

‘What is missing, Miss – um – Mrs—’

‘I am just addressed as Kallinkova, Inspector.’ She smiled, her accent charming, her eyes lively. ‘It is a greater tribute, you see.’

Rose didn’t, but accepted it. He always moved cautiously with Russians. Never knew when they might burst into tears.

‘I should like to meet this man,’ said Kallinkova, a little wistfully.

‘So would I, Miss – Kallinkova.’

She laughed, a rich chuckle. ‘Ah, mon cher Inspecteur, it is my egg he really wanted, this burglar.’

‘Egg, miss? Did you say egg?’ Visions of stolen breakfasts had at first floated before Rose’s startled eyes.

Kallinkova laughed. ‘My Fabergé egg. A gift of His Imperial Highness the Grand Duke Igor. You understand?’

Inspector Rose did at once. That case at Stockbery Towers had given him insight into the ways of the aristocracy in England; he had little doubt that these Russians were much the same. Moreover, he had had dealings with the Grand Duke Igor on many occasions, summoned to the Mayfair home with relentless frequency.

‘He gave it to me when we – ah – parted a year ago. He knows I am discreet. Of course he did not want to part, you understand, but the Tsar insisted. So did the Grand Duchess Anna,’ she added more realistically.

Rose tried to maintain a straight face before her twinkling eyes, inviting him to share the joke. He failed, and let out a guffaw.

‘Each egg, Inspector, opens to reveal a precious object inside. Outside it is the craftsmanship, you understand, which gives it its value. Inside, however, there is – in the case of the Imperial eggs – the precious stones or gold, fashioned in the likeness of some object, the Imperial coach for example. But my egg, Inspector, and’ – she paused – ‘each of those of the Grand Duke’s other – er – lady friends contains a ruby.’

‘The love of a good woman, eh?’ said Rose incautiously, wrapped up in the story.

‘Exactly, mon cher Inspecteur.’ She gurgled with laughter, then continued thoughtfully, ‘And I think you might find, dear Inspector, that those other ladies also have had eggs stolen. You told me there had been several burglaries of jewels, did you not? Rubies perhaps? If you ask them – tactfully of course. They have husbands . . .’ She gave a little shrug.

After he had left, Rose mentally scanned his list, brows furrowed. Tactful inquiries had followed and elicited that a further five Fabergé eggs from a further five mistresses, all, like Kallinkova, now past, and all eggs containing rubies, had been stolen one by one from the great houses of Britain. In each case entrance had been gained by a drainpipe, balconies, or in one case a nearby tree provided access. Five re-interviews had followed. Rose shuddered at the memory of two of them. He wouldn’t like to sit through Rachel Gray’s (Mrs Cyril Tucker) tragic outburst again. He’d felt he was at a performance of one of Mr Pinero’s plays. As befitting her position as one of London’s leading tragedy queens, Mrs Tucker had tottered blindly across the room – though not too blindly to find the chaise longue and collapse gracefully upon it – moaning at intervals, ‘My husband must not know.’ Or Lady Westbourne, a very different kettle of cod. Cool as a cucumber, he had to prise the information out of her, like a whelk. In all five cases, husbands were to be barred from knowledge of the complete facts.

There was, Rose grudgingly admitted, good reason for this. The gift of a Fabergé egg could only come from one source, if not the Tsar himself: a Grand Duke of Imperial Russia. And Grand Dukes were not noted for handing out such prized gifts unless the relationship with the recipient was close. Moreover since even these eggs, which coming merely from a Grand Duke to a past mistress were somewhat less elaborate than those from the Tsar to the Tsarina, were a year at least in the making, it followed that the friendship with the lady was or had been no mere passing whim. Therefore Mrs Rachel Tucker, Lady Westbourne and three other ladies of equally impeccable social standing, if not morals, conveniently overlooked the theft of the egg itself, when reporting, albeit reluctantly, the theft of the ruby. Husbands, unaware of Fabergé eggs secreted in their households, would not be unaware of the disappearance of a ruby which in each case the lady concerned had been unable to resist wearing. They were exceptionally fine rubies.

Kallinkova being single and having no husband to wonder why his wife should be the recipient of a Fabergé egg, had entered into the spirit of the chase with relish, and gave Rose details of the London ladies’ calling-hour gossip concerning the other five victims.

‘I should like to meet this man,’ repeated Kallinkova when in late February Rose had duly interviewed her again and confirmed her suspicions regarding her fellow victims. ‘What an artist. As I am myself.’ She pirouetted despite the confines of the tight heavy silk skirt. ‘To steal from a collection and take only the supreme jewel. My ruby is beautiful, but it is nothing compared with the egg itself. He wants only the thing of beauty, the work of a master craftsman. Ah yes. He is an artist in himself, is he not, Inspector?’

‘He’s a thief, Miss Kallinkova,’ said Rose glumly. ‘And it’s my job to catch him.’ A job that was getting more difficult by the minute. A jewel thief was one thing, a stealer of Fabergé eggs smacked of something different. International art collectors for example. And that meant the Commissioner would be breathing down his neck, as well as the Chief Constable.

He sighed, and Kallinkova laughed at his lugubrious face. He looked like a bloodhound, she decided, summing him up. A reliable friend – and a relentless hunter, with his watchful grey eyes.

‘You’d better give me a full description, miss,’ he said, resolutely refusing to share the joke.

Kallinkova put her hands meekly in her lap.

‘The Imperial eggs that his Imperial Majesty the Tsar gives to the Tsaritsa and Dowager Tsaritsa are naturally larger, more elaborate and the gifts inside works of art in themselves. This Igor could not do. It would not be comme il faut. But they are beautiful all the same. On the outside’ – she smiled, inviting Rose to share her joke at male expense – ‘a portrait of Igor himself surrounded by tiny diamonds. The egg – my egg is pale green enamel and criss-crossed in gold. And inside all the eggs, so Igor says, are the rubies. But a woman’s value is high above rubies, is it not, Inspector?’ Her eyes twinkled. ‘Igor should know this before he takes another lover,’ she added obscurely.

‘Besides those we know about, did the Grand Duke have any other – um—?’

‘Lovers? Ah, Inspector,’ she smiled deliciously, ‘how could I know? Igor is a very’ – she paused, head on one side – ‘enthusiastic man.’

Rose blenched at the thought of tracking down a cat burglar on the trail of an enthusiastic man. Why did these Grand Dukes have to live in London? Why didn’t they stay in Russia? Somewhere off his beat.

‘There is one thing, Inspector,’ she added helpfully. ‘I have a feeling there was one other egg – you understand I am a femme du monde and Igor talked to me as not to the others – that is bigger, more splendid than the rest, not because the lady was more prized, but because it is her profession, yes? Naturally she required more money. But she chose not money, but an egg that must be better than the others, she said. He was not happy, Igor, but he granted it to gain her favours. This lady does not live in England, so I think either it has not yet been stolen or you have not heard about it.’

‘If it’s not in England, it’s not my concern,’ Rose said swiftly. Other countries could take care of their own burglars.

‘Perhaps your burglar has not heard of the egg, if he is a London person, just listening to gossip. As I do,’ she laughed.

‘Who is this lady?’ Rose was curious despite himself.

She spread her hands regretfully. ‘I do not know, Inspector.’ She laughed as she saw his face fall, and relented. ‘Yes, Inspector, I do. Her name is La Belle Mimosa.’

‘What?’

‘The beautiful Mimosa.’

‘Mimosa what?’

‘Not what. La Belle Mimosa. She is always known thus, and addressed so. As I am Kallinkova. It tells our professions. Mine, the greatest ballerina in the world; hers the most famous courtesan. During the summer she dwells. . .