Maxim Jakubowski - The Best British Mysteries III

Jonathan picked it up: ‘Moll, miss you, sweetheart. Come to me March. George,’ he read out.

‘How thoughtful.’ Lady Luckens’ eyes filled with tears at which her husband growled:

‘Time to move, Viola.’

‘What the heck for?’ Red demanded. ‘This your quaint English custom of getting rid of the ladies?’

‘No, sir,’ Jonathan chortled. ‘An even quainter custom of repairing to the banqueting house for our dessert.’

‘In Chuck’s Diner you get the food brought to you.’ Red snapped his fingers at Auguste and the butler. ‘Maybe you fellows could learn a thing or two.’

‘Perhaps you could learn even more, Red,’ William said disdainfully. ‘Good manners, perhaps?’

The banqueting house at Luckens Place was a separate building about two hundred yards from the main house, with one large room, a serving area, and a retiring room. Luckens ancestors stared down in beneficent envy of their descendants’ banquets of elaborate sweetmeats and jellies. Auguste had contented himself for this small gathering with orangeflower and rosewater creams, lettuce suckets, two leaches, candied marigolds, and apricots, raspberry cakes, some preserves and a moulded and iced marchpane centrepiece of the Luckens arms.

He cast an anxious eye over his work. At least here with a more informal atmosphere he could pass among the guests and keep an eye both on his culinary work and on the two claimants. He was puzzled about the latter, who at the moment seemed to have forgotten their differences, as they demolished his Elizabethan delights with great gusto. No doubt their animated tête-à-tête was comparing them favourably with home fare.

‘Blasted titbits,’ Lord Luckens commented on a plate of kissing comfits, presented to him by Auguste. ‘Nothing like a savoury to end a meal.’

Auguste agreed. It was revolting, in his view, to kill the pleasant afterglow of a meal with strong anchovies or cooked cheese, or kidneys.

‘Ever tried hominy grits?’ Red asked, strolling up to them, with one hand busy feeding a slice of the Luckens arms into his mouth. ‘I’ll sure miss it when I get to come here for good.’

‘Don’t concern yourself, Red.’ William was following hard on his heels. ‘You’ll be on grits for the rest of your life.’

‘Don’t be too sure of that, pal.’ Red helped himself to a candied marigold, then elegantly spat it out into his empty glass, which he handed to Auguste.

‘I think you both can be sure of it,’ Jonathan remarked complacently. ‘I shall be the next Lord Luckens.’

‘How about waiting till I’m dead?’ his present lordship shouted furiously at his guests.

Lady Luckens’ brow was clouded as she added her own contribution to the conversation. ‘I am a great admirer of our dear Queen, especially in her Jubilee year, but I feel she has enough palaces already. And there’s Osborne, of course.’

‘Don’t follow you, Grandmammy.’ Red looked puzzled.

‘I believe my aunt refers to the fact that I myself have no heirs and if no others can be traced the estate is likely to revert to the Crown after my death,’ Jonathan explained kindly.

‘Over my dead body,’ William declared.

‘Dear Victoria,’ Lady Luckens said brightly. ‘How she loves the Isle of Wight. We took our honeymoon there, do you remember, Alfred? We walked to Alum Bay, visited Carisbrooke Castle – ah, the peace. I don’t wonder our dear Queen loves it so.’

‘Grandma, I can assure you the Queen will not be the recipient of this estate ever. I myself am married, with a son,’ William said earnestly. ‘Little Jefferson is your great-grandson.’

‘Bunkum,’ Red yelled. ‘ I’m your grandson, and I can tell you Red Luckens is gonna sire a whole wagonload of kids. No nancies here.’ He smirked at Jonathan. ‘No wife, no heirs, eh?’

‘But after meeting you two gentlemen this evening, I am quite sure – forgive me, Uncle – who will be wearing the coronet next,’ Jonathan retorted quietly. ‘I should like a word with you both later.’

‘And I’d like a word with you now, Didier.’ Lord Luckens stomped over to him, and drew a reluctant Auguste aside from the marvels of his banquet. ‘That blasted nephew of mine seems to have made his mind up. Have you found out which one’s my grandson yet?’

Auguste hedged. ‘I’m still assembling ingredients, sir.’

‘Eh?’ Lord Luckens had no time for metaphor. ‘I’ve told Red and William we’ll sleep on it. That all right with you?’

‘Yes, sir.’ Auguste was only too grateful. Such suspicions as he had as to whom was the impostor were vague, swimming around like unwelcome lumps in a béchamel sauce. A night’s sleep would smooth out his thinking, leaving the paste smooth.

‘I’ve told Jonathan what you’re here for. Know what he replied?’ Lord Luckens guffawed. ‘I hope his detection is better than his cooking, he said. The beef was surprisingly good, but he’d seldom tasted a worse pie. Don’t worry yourself, Didier. Everyone makes mistakes.’

Auguste Didier seethed. He never did.

Auguste woke up suddenly to find firstly that it was still the middle of the night, and secondly that he would not be able to sleep again without paying attention to the demands of nature. He had been pleasantly surprised to find his room was on the guest floor, and not in the servants’ quarters, but he was not so impressed with the chamber pot under his bed. Lord Luckens did not go in for modern inventions like bathrooms, or apparently indoor privies. Somewhere, he decided, one must surely exist, and he went out to prowl in search of it.

So far as Auguste could tell, there had been little opportunity for Jonathan to beard his elected impostor during the remaining time the gathering had stayed in the banqueting house, and he presumed that Jonathan too had decided to postpone any confrontation until morning. As he walked along the corridor, Auguste was uncomfortably aware of his squeaking footsteps, and the guest rooms were so far from the Queen’s Chamber where Jonathan was sleeping that Auguste wondered whether Red and William had been assigned these rooms deliberately, so that the floorboards would give warning of visitors. There was no sound from either of their rooms, however.

Reaching a closed door across the corridor without succeeding in his quest, Auguste realised he had reached one of the towers flanking the Queen’s Chamber. Perhaps even now Jonathan was having his ‘word’. Who could tell behind these thick walls? Between Auguste and the chamber lay a six-foot tower room, and any sound would be muffled.

He took the staircase down to the entrance hall, and here at the foot of the tower his search was rewarded. Nevertheless, a vague anxiety hovered inside him, as, primary mission accomplished in what must surely be the original scorned water closet invented by Sir John Harington for Queen Elizabeth, Auguste returned to bed.

He awoke hours later to the sounds of disturbance outside his room which reached a crescendo as pounding footsteps passed his door. Perhaps, he told himself hopefully, the housemaid had dropped the water ewer. He snuggled down once more under the inviting blankets, for there was no sign of a housemaid’s ministrations to light a fire in the grate, where last night’s ashes still presented a melancholy picture.

Then his door flew open, and his host, fully-dressed, stood on the threshold, gibbering: ‘Didier, blasted man’s dead.’

‘Dead? Who?’ Auguste sat up in bed. ‘How?’ Auguste’s first thought that adulterated food might well come out of Lord Luckens’ kitchen was dismissed. Yesterday it had been supervised by him.