Murder in The Smokehouse

by Amy Myers

Genres: General Fiction; Historical Fiction; Mystery

Synopsis

The seventh Auguste Didier mystery. Late in 1901, Auguste Didier and his Russian bride Princess Tatiana are visiting the Yorkshire seat of the Tabor family for a banquet the King has promised to attend. Determined that tobacco will not sully her priceless tapestries, Lady Priscilla Tabor dispatches gentlemen who wish to smoke to a gloomy Gothic folly which has been allotted for this unseemly purpose. Even His Majesty the King is no exception to the intransigent Lady Tabor's rules. Unfortunately for her ladyship, Tatiana is curious both about the smokehouse and about the filthy habit indulged within its walls. In the middle of the night, Auguste finds himself unceremoniously hauled from his bed by his wife to inspect the body she has just discovered there. Once again, Didier is forced, reluctantly, to play detective - there are many secrets to be revealed and questions asked. Is this a case of suicide or murder? And, even more important, who is the corpse?

Release date: October 24, 2013

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 320

Sample

Prologue

Deepest black is a great leveller. Only the curious shape inflicted by the newly fashionable straight-fronted corsets at first
distinguished the guests. Closer inspection might have revealed a difference in the fit of the gentlemen’s deep-black velvet
court attire and mere cloth morning suits, and between their ladies’ black crepe and humbler silk. But then no one, after
the finest fourteen-course luncheon the Marlborough House kitchens and cellars could provide, was greatly interested in closer
inspection. This was, after all, a wedding.


‘Ah, Auguste.’

If Auguste Didier had needed confirmation that the dizzy experience he had just undergone was fact, His Majesty King Edward
VII’s greeting, somewhat overhearty, would have supplied it. It was not every day that a commoner, a chef at that, married
into even the outer purlieus of the royal family.


‘Your Majesty?’ Auguste bowed.

The King relaxed. The fellow still knew his place. Uneasily he recalled how he had been forced to regal compromise in their
first conflict. After he had generously granted permission to Tatiana to wed the fellow, he had naturally expected them to
wait a few years until the court should be out of mourning for Mama. It had politely been made clear to him that waiting was
not on this cook’s menu. Auguste had compromised with a wedding in July, shortly before deepest mourning changed to half-mourning, whether His Majesty liked it
or not. He didn’t, actually. A Black Wedding meant no dancing, and, since the wedding breakfast would have to be held at Marlborough
House, that meant no Alice Keppel or any other form of light relief.


Moreover, although His Majesty was aware that this chef had rendered him sterling service in the past, and not just in the
form of perfectly cooked mutton chops, his royal spurs had yet to be won. He had no intention of awarding them at this time.
He smiled benignly at his newly acquired remote relation.


‘Excellent sermon, eh?’

Auguste could remember little of the proceedings in St James’s Palace, save arriving in the Presence Chamber and being shown
the initials of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn by a compassionate flunkey, hoping to divert him after seeing his white face. Auguste
had merely meditated on whether Anne’s unkind fate on marrying into the royal family might yet be his own for his temerity
in marrying in the very chapel in which the late Queen and her beloved Albert had wed. The rest was a blur.


‘I don’t remember, sir,’ he bravely confessed.

The King roared. ‘Quite understandable,’ he beamed, relieved that after all Auguste might be human as well as a chef.

Emboldened, Auguste plunged into folly. ‘I understand we shall be meeting at Tabor Hall in September, sir.’

His Majesty frowned. Unfortunately for Auguste, Tabor Hall conjured up unpleasant thoughts.

‘Quite a change, eh? You won’t be cooking this time, or ever again,’ he barked.

Auguste blinked. Did he hear aright?

‘Not now,’ the King pointed out, surprised that it was necessary to do so. ‘It wouldn’t do.’

Auguste met his monarch’s eye squarely. ‘I can’t promise that, sir.’

His Majesty’s face darkened. Then he remembered this was a wedding, and time to be jovial. He noticed that inspector fellow
from Scotland Yard whom Auguste had insisted on inviting and it jogged his memory.


‘No more murder then. Understood?’

Here Auguste was in full agreement. He nodded. ‘Perfectly, sir.’

Country house visiting had many drawbacks, Auguste reflected crossly, as he fidgeted outside Settle railway station. One of
them was the Midland railway. Two changes of train and the necessity of superintending thirty items of luggage had rendered
the whole idea of Yorkshire even more depressing. It was dismal, cold and wet and the grey stone around them did little to
help.


Nor did the sight of Tatiana’s glowing face as her tall figure, clad in the dark purple zibeline that mourning etiquette now
graciously permitted, strode to the pile of trunks and miraculously brought order to chaos.


‘Alors, Auguste, you look like the bridegroom whose wine was turned into water.’


‘Obviously he lived in Yorkshire,’ Auguste retorted, as a large raindrop evaded hat and ulster and slid triumphantly down
his neck.


‘Don’t you like rain?’ Tatiana asked surprised, as she looked round with interest at this new territory which bore little
resemblance to her native Paris.


‘No. Nor do I like guns,’ Auguste told her back succinctly, as she whirled round to remove a hat box from over-close proximity to the oysters. Their
presence indicated that the Tabor Hall staff had other missions in Settle besides the conveyance of the Didiers. ‘And I do like cooking. The life of a gentleman, it seems, forbids me to do what I like and orders me to do the other.’


‘It is only for four days,’ Tatiana told him regretfully, as at last he was able to hand her into the Tabor carriage. ‘Four
days here.’ Her eyes lit up with the enthusiasm of a Cortez surveying the Pacific.


An eternity! Auguste reflected on the prospect ahead. Friday 27 to Monday 30 September to be spent at Tabor Hall, which was
hidden somewhere in those wild dark hills outlined menacingly against the overcast sky. The gathering was to celebrate the
engagement of the Honourable Miss Victoria Tabor to Tatiana’s cousin, Alexander Tully-Rich. Tatiana seemed to be related to
most of the Almanack de Gotha. The invitation had sounded so innocuous when Tatiana had first told him of it. Foreboding had
struck on learning that the King would be present, for Auguste was only too aware that this visit could be a trial of his
suitability for the honour of being termed a gentleman. A master chef, albeit one who had been trained by Monsieur Escoffier
himself, could naturally not have automatic entrée to such exalted status. Not in England.


He reflected with some satisfaction on his victory in the Battle of the Kitchen with His Majesty – or, if he were honest,
a draw. Subtly he had reminded His Majesty of the ortolans braised in Armagnac, of the poularde Derby and the numerous other gastronomic treats he had prepared for him in the past. The King had shrewdly taken the point. Auguste
might continue to cook for charity, he might superintend banquets in the homes of friends, and he must cook when the King was to be present. He could do, he gathered, whatever he bally well liked when abroad, and safely out
of His Britannic Majesty’s realms.


It wasn’t much, but it was something.

‘I could say I want you by my side,’ Tatiana said hopefully, ‘then you would not have to shoot.’

‘That is no excuse,’ Auguste said hollowly. ‘No English gentleman would remain with his wife in preference to shooting.’

‘You are only a half-English gentleman,’ Tatiana reminded him. ‘Very well, consider the game pies you will produce.’

Auguste preferred not to. True, Brillat Savarin had declared that the pheasant was an enigma whose glories could only be appreciated
by the truly trained palate, but he had too many memories of Stockbery Towers’ game larders overflowing with hung birds and
the inevitable trail of pheasant à la financière, pheasant pie, pheasant soup, pheasant à la Marena, pheasant galantine, godiveaux of fillets of pheasant, and every other way of honouring pheasant until his dreams were full
of gloating birds running amok around his beloved kitchens and procreating in his larders.


His reluctance to join the inevitable shooting party at Tabor Hall stemmed from baser emotions, however. His previous experience
of shooting had been confined to the occasional lapin on the hillsides of his native Provence, a training that did not qualify him to stand in a line of Lord Tabor’s best guns.
A sudden happy recollection that the pheasant season did not open till 1 October was promptly succeeded by the less happy
thought that partridges, hares, rabbits and waterfowl might prove acceptable targets for the Tabor party while limbering up
for the great day.


‘I could say Mr Marx disapproved of shooting,’ Tatiana offered, struck by sudden inspiration.

Auguste failed to share her enthusiasm. Karl Marx was Tatiana’s latest excursion in attempting to discover new worlds that
had been closed to her as a Russian princess in Paris.


‘Did he?’

‘No, but the Tabors will not know that.’

He managed a laugh. ‘I will say my devotion to His Majesty’s cuisine demands my presence all day.’

‘Does it?’

‘No, but the Tabors will not know that.’

Good humour restored, he took his wife’s hand in his, thus abandoning any pretension to the status of English gentleman for
a while longer as the carriage at last pulled away.


‘Mon brave, this is adventure, is it not?’ his wife said happily, as the carriage jolted down the station approach, and soon turned
into what was obviously the main street, crowded by gaily dressed townsfolk. Auguste caught a glimpse of a fair in progress
in the distance, and suddenly that seemed the most desirable place on earth to be. But the carriage turned and the horses
were led up a steep lane between the limestone houses and shops of Over Settle. The lane narrowed, leaving civilisation behind.
His doom was upon him.


‘Nothing will go wrong, George. How can it?’ stated Priscilla, Lady Tabor, with her usual conviction. ‘I have organised everything
for His Majesty’s visit.’ She implied – with reason – that it would take a daring god of mischance indeed to presume to counter
her arrangements. Her purple silk rustled approvingly on her Junoesque figure.


‘Do remember this wasn’t my idea, Mother,’ Victoria put in brightly. An engagement party bound by stuffy royal etiquette –
and, worse, in black in deference to the King’s state of mourning for his mother, and his sister, not to mention a recently
assassinated President McKinley – was far from the halcyon day of wine and roses she and Alexander had blissfully imagined.


Lady Tabor turned on her daughter. ‘Most young ladies would be overwhelmed at the privilege of His Majesty’s presence at their betrothal reception, Victoria.’


‘So long as Alexander is there, why should I care?’

‘Your mother’s right, Victoria,’ interposed Lord Tabor, nervously, one eye on his wife.

‘Oh, George, don’t be such a namby pamby.’ His mother Miriam was as usual bent on annoying her daughter-in-law. ‘Victoria’s
quite right. Love is more than coronets. Or is that kind hearts? I can never remember.’


Whichever it was, Priscilla Tabor stiffened. She was aware she was on shaky ground, being one of the many American heiresses
who had come to find love in England provided it were suitably encased in title, if not diamonds. The main salon at Tabor
Hall might not boast the domed ceiling and painted Laguerre murals of Marlborough House, but Priscilla Tabor had done her
best in presenting five hundred years of Tabor history in tapestry, aged oils and watercolours to guests sufficiently hard
of hearing to have escaped her conversational lectures on the subject.


‘I have worked extremely hard, Victoria,’ she informed her daughter reproachfully, ‘in order to crown your social position.’

‘And yours, Ma.’ Alfred, lounging on a chesterfield, was all for leaping on any passing bandwagons, providing he was reasonably
sure of their not overturning and trapping him beneath.


‘Mother, it’s taken three months to redecorate and refurbish the entire west wing for the King’s visit. All for two nights,’
her daughter pointed out as impatiently as she dared. ‘What should we have done if the Queen had decided to come too?’


‘I should have used a paler shade of pink,’ her mother replied seriously. No one laughed. Not at Priscilla.

‘After all,’ Victoria pressed on, ‘the King can only sleep in one bed.’

‘That’s not quite accurate, my dear,’ her grandmother said innocently. ‘Priscilla has invited Mrs Janes at His Majesty’s request.’

‘We have to accommodate his equerries, aides de camp, secretaries,’ Priscilla said loudly to regain control. ‘Also his ushers,
an Extra Gentleman usher, and I believe Gold Stick. And two bodyguards,’ she added dismissively, ‘for his personal security.
Not that they will be needed—’


‘At least we don’t have to lodge his kitchen staff,’ Victoria broke in, confident of aiming straight for her mother’s silk-clad
Achilles heel. ‘Not with Mr Didier coming.’


Auguste was Priscilla’s major social problem. This was not, after all, her native America. How did one treat a member of the
royal family who properly belonged to the servant class? Moreover one who refused to play down this fact and insisted on flaunting
it before all of them by demanding to cook for His Majesty, apparently with the latter’s blessing. ‘We are fortunate Breckles
took it in good part.’


‘Breckles only took it in good part because he thinks he can snap any cook from beastly old London in two over his knee if
need be. He’s looking forward to it,’ Victoria pointed out gleefully.


‘Nonsense.’ Priscilla firmly refused to acknowledge the possibility of trouble below stairs when all concerned were required
to pull their weight for the good of the Tabors. ‘There’s nothing to worry about. Don’t you agree, Laura?’ She looked for
support from her sister-in-law, who had been placidly reading throughout the skirmish.


‘She’s mooning over a letter from Roughneck Robert. He’s rushing back to see her, now he’s a household name, to claim her hand. Poor old Olly, eh?’ Alfred said loftily.


Laura hastily put the letter aside. ‘You are wrong, as it happens, Alfred. It is not from Mr Mariot. It is from Mr Carstairs,
telling me he’s driving over with Alexander today instead of arriving tomorrow.’


‘Really, Laura.’ Priscilla was outraged. ‘You might consider the maids.’

‘Oliver would not dare to seduce them under your roof, Priscilla,’ Miriam reassured her.

‘Mother!’ Laura said warningly, as Priscilla’s formidable bosom swelled.

‘No need to bother with the maids with Aunt Gertie around,’ put in Alfred provocatively.

‘Silence.’ The tone in his mother’s voice stopped him instantly. Couldn’t go too far with the mater. Not while she controlled
the purse strings, and he required them to open rather too frequently of late.


‘She’s deuced attractive,’ said George incautiously of his brother’s new wife.

‘As a chorus girl, doubtless she had need to be,’ said Priscilla. ‘Now she has succeeded in marrying Cyril, she requires other
qualities.’


‘Such as?’ Victoria asked.

‘She has no knowledge of petit point.’

‘Deplorable,’ agreed Laura.

Priscilla looked at her suspiciously, but could perceive nothing in her sister-in-law’s shocked face of which she could complain.
She swept on to deliver her broadside.


‘Furthermore, I hear Cyril permits her to take a smoke.’

There was a hushed silence now. Victoria broke it, rushing in with the temerity of one shortly to escape the parental nest.
‘So there’ll be a high old time in the smokehouse. Or are you going to relax the rules for His Majesty, Mama?’


The verdict was delayed by a loud explosion outside.

‘By jingo, what’s that?’ George demanded angrily. ‘An infernal machine?’

Victoria ran to the window and looked down upon the drive beneath. ‘Not infernal, Papa. It’s darling, darling Alexander’s.
And sweet Mr Carstairs is with him, Aunt Laura.’


She rushed out and down the staircase, colliding with Richey the butler in the doorway. Speeding ahead of him down the steps,
she threw herself into her beloved’s arms, as he leapt from the motorcar.


‘Oh, now we can start having fun,’ she cried.

Greatly to her surprise, Alexander disengaged himself gently. ‘Darling, I have to see your mother. Immediately.’

Victoria looked at him, and alarm shot through her. What now? What could be wrong? He looked far more worried than an imminent meeting with Mother would warrant. Fun was obviously going
to be a little delayed.


So this was Yorkshire. Steep stony hillsides, softly curved crests melting into one another as gently as mounds of beaten
egg whites, and everywhere grass and sheep. Obligingly the rain stopped and a weak sun shone, as the Tabor carriage lurched
over the moors. Sheep scattered reluctantly from the path, annoyed at being interrupted in their contemplation of eternity.
The occasional shepherd stared at the carriage with a frank curious interest before he returned to the real business of life:
sheep. The moorland glowed with the changing colours of bracken, yet as the carriage turned further into the remote fells,
Auguste shivered, remembering they were not far from Brontë country. How easy to believe now in the elemental passions of
Catherine and Heathcliff. This was as far from Provence or London as it was possible to imagine, an alien countryside, whose people seemed of a different
race. He reminded himself firmly that on Monday evening he and Tatiana would be back in their new home in Queen Anne’s Gate
surrounded by the comforting noisy bustle of London. Back where safety lay.


Safety? Auguste laughed at himself. He was to be living in luxury at a country house in which His Majesty the King was also
a guest. What could be safer than that?


At last, having left a small village and inviting inn behind them, the horses turned on to a rough track across a narrow river,
then followed the track with hills rising steeply on one side. Auguste could just see ahead of them, wedged between steep
hillsides, the grey shape of a large house. Was it an omen that the bright streams now flowing fast on both sides of them
were busy scurrying in the opposite direction – away from Tabor Hall?


‘Alors, mon amour,’ Tatiana cried excitedly. ‘The die is cast.’


An unfortunate choice of word, as it turned out.

His Majesty Edward VII gazed moodily out of the window of the royal train, trying not to think of ordeal by Priscilla Tabor.
It was too bad. Weeks with Alexandra’s parents in Denmark, and now that he was free to go to Balmoral he had to stop in Yorkshire
en route.


Had not the late Baron Tabor done him some service when he was Prince of Wales, in extricating him from an entanglement of
more interest to the young lady than to himself, it was doubtful whether the Tabors would ever have reached the social eminence
to which they had been catapulted in the last twenty-five years. The then Prince had developed a liking for Tabor’s son, George, the present baron who was five years his junior, chiefly because
he was a fair shot; but even her striking good looks had failed to kindle a similar emotion for his wife. When a daughter
was born to the pair, he had agreed to be the girl’s godfather for the sake of old times, not foreseeing that this promise
would eventually come home to roost in the form of occasional but obligatory attendance at family celebrations.


One of these was this Friday to Sunday. Alexandra had flatly refused to come, choosing to go straight to Balmoral. Only the
prospect of Beatrice Janes awaiting him as one of the guests cheered him. And even the rewards that that brought forth never
seemed quite as satisfying nowadays. Poularde Derby had more to offer on the whole. He remembered that Auguste Didier would be cooking for him at Tabor Hall, and cheered up
a little. At least deepest mourning didn’t affect the menu.


‘I wish we’d never invited him,’ moaned Priscilla, staring calamity in the face.

‘He is married to my cousin,’ Alexander pointed out, somewhat reproachfully, ‘and since my parents could not be present, I
wanted Tatiana to be here.’ Priscilla was aware she had put a foot wrong, but Priscilla’s foot once planted was hard to retrieve.


‘I have no intention of having a murder at Tabor Hall,’ Priscilla glared around at her family as though they were responsible
for this serpent in her carefully constructed Arcadia.


‘We could tell them the whole thing’s off,’ George offered almost hopefully.

‘Too late! The carriages have arrived.’ There was a note of positive relish in his mother’s voice. At seventy-nine years of age, she had to take her enjoyment where she could.


Was this one of Mr Wagner’s Valkyries awaiting them, Auguste thought wildly, as he handed Tatiana down from the carriage and
prepared to be hurled into the arena to be torn apart by Society’s lions. He cautiously advanced beside the easy stride of
his wife, trying not to peer at the house in order to guess where the kitchens might be. This was not an easy task in this
huge grey three-storeyed mansion with its massive pillared portico.


He was right. She was a Valkyrie, judging by the wide-brimmed grey hat with two coiled white horns – he caught himself, plumes of course. That,
together with today’s new shape of bosom thrust forward and posterior bouncing ostentatiously backwards, and Brünnhilde herself
stood before him, albeit a somewhat mature version.


Resisting the temptation to step nobly forward, smite himself on the chest and sing out: Here am I, Siegfried, Auguste bowed
to his hostess.


‘Welcome to Tabor Hall, your Highness. Mr Didier. I trust you’ll enjoy your stay.’ Priscilla’s gracious charm enveloped him
but failed to reassure.


‘Oh, pray do not call me Highness, I am Madame Didier,’ Tatiana assured her earnestly. ‘I do not approve of titles – my title,’ she amended hastily.


Priscilla paused, then decided to dismiss this as Russian eccentricity.

‘I say, you haven’t become an anarchist, have you, cousin?’ Alexander demanded with interest.

‘A Marxist,’ Tatiana told him amiably.

A bewildering array of Tabors were introduced to them, an ordeal Auguste survived efficiently by imagining them as guests
ordering at his restaurant: the nondescript man with pale eyes and thinning fair hair, was their host, Lord Tabor (mustard sauce and devilled kidneys);
a middle-aged woman in dove grey with a calm face and intelligent eyes, his unmarried sister, Laura (the much undervalued
boiled sole). The owlish and spotty youth with a dashing waistcoat which paid mere lip service to complimentary mourning,
was the Tabor son and heir, Alfred (caviare and grouse), and a younger and plumper replica of Lord Tabor, his brother, Cyril
(pheasant and hare). His much younger wife, Gertie (champagne and oysters) was an attractive girl, who looked as nervous as
he felt. He warmed to Alexander, who had a distinct family resemblance to Tatiana. He and the blonde-haired Victoria, whose
exuberance conquered the dullness of the lavender dress complimentary mourning demanded of her, made a striking couple (strawberries
and orange).


‘Would you like a walk up Willy’s Brow?’ Victoria asked him brightly. ‘We could go now.’

Auguste gazed at her, completely at a loss. Was this some aristocratic term for a staircase? He was saved by his host – if
saved was the right word. ‘No! I’m giving Didier a turn round the gun room right away.’


Gun room? Willy’s Brow? Auguste’s spirits sank. He had always thought guests went to their room, bathed, changed and in due
course descended for social intercourse.


‘I will come too,’ Tatiana announced briskly.

‘What a splendid idea, George,’ his wife boomed enthusiastically. She ignored Tatiana’s offer. ‘Afterwards Alfred can take
Mr Didier to inspect the kitchens.’


Auguste was taken aback. Eager as he was for the latter experience, a few minutes’ respite, if merely to attend the calls
of nature, would have been welcome. Then his last line of retreat was cut off.


‘I will take care of Pr – Madame Didier.’ Lady Tabor looked at Tatiana much as Mr Bram Stoker’s vampire might have eyed his
choicest victim.


‘I too would like to see the kitchens.’ Tatiana might be a match for vampires, but not for her hostess.

‘Tea, I think,’ pronounced Priscilla with a quiet smile, ‘dear Mrs Didier.’

‘Then after dinner you can tell us all about your murders,’ Victoria announced brightly to Auguste.

‘Steady on, Vicky,’ drawled Alfred.

Was it his imagination, Auguste wondered, or did Priscilla suddenly look pale? With the recent assassination of President
McKinley and the presence of the King here, perhaps murder was as unwelcome a word to his hostess as it was to him.


Victoria failed to take her brother’s hint. ‘But murder is what you’re famous for, isn’t it, Mr Didier? You must tell us everything,
or since His Majesty will not be dining with us this evening, perhaps you would prefer to wait until tomorrow? I am sure he
would be most interested too.’


Auguste was only too well aware that His Majesty would most certainly not be interested, but was not proof against Vi. . .