Maxim Jakubowski - The Best British Mysteries III

‘Shot.’

Auguste stared at him. ‘But who?’

‘My blasted sodomite nephew or that’s what he calls himself. I told him he was no part of the Luckens family; lets the side down. He can get up to what he likes in his bed, but women with the vote indeed. Next thing we know there’ll be women in parliament.’

Lord Luckens brooded on this potential catastrophe for a moment before returning to his present one. ‘Might have killed himself, of course,’ he said hopefully. ‘Just like him, to choose my house.’ He ruminated, then sighed. ‘Unlikely, I grant you. Which one of those two did it? Which one’s the fraud, Didier? This is going to mean having police barging around, and I want to know what’s what before they get here.’

Auguste leapt from his bed to find his dressing robe. ‘Where was Mr Luckens found?’

‘In his bedroom. Where else? If that’s your standard of detection -’

Auguste did not wait for him to finish his tirade, but followed by his lordship, hurried to the Queen’s Chamber. News had spread quickly, for William and Red were already there, standing one each side of the body.

‘Move aside, if you please, gentlemen,’ Auguste said, steeling himself for the ordeal and glad that he had not yet had breakfast.

Jonathan Luckens, still fully dressed in his evening clothes, lay on his back on the rug by his bed, sightless eyes staring upwards, shot through the temple. One hand hung limply down and on the rug at his side was the gun, a Smith and Wesson. Auguste confirmed the obvious, then turned to his lordship.

‘You were right, sir,’ he said. ‘It’s murder. There are no powder burns round the wound or on the hand, as there would be if he had shot himself. In my opinion, he was shot from some feet away.’

‘Murder?’ William squeaked in horror.

Red seemed equally appalled. ‘See here,’ he began.

‘Did any of you hear anything?’ Auguste asked.

‘Thick walls,’ Lord Luckens said complacently, taking the credit for his ancestors’ masonry.

‘A risk though.’ Auguste frowned. ‘Suppose someone had heard; there’s only one passage, and the murderer would have been trapped.’

‘Window’s open,’ Lord Luckens snorted. ‘Plenty of footholds on the ivy.’

Auguste went to look. ‘It is certainly possible, but -’ He broke off, collecting his thoughts as he looked round the room. There seemed nothing unusual, until he opened a bedside drawer. Inside was a pistol.

‘What the devil’s that doing there?’ Lord Luckens glared. ‘I don’t leave guns around for my guests to play with. It’s mine all right, but he must have taken it from the gunroom. With good reason, I’d say.’

‘Messieurs ,’ Auguste said quietly, not commenting on the ‘good reason’, ‘I suggest that we all retire from this room and that it is locked until the police arrive.’

William and Red were only too happy to agree, and after some demur Lord Luckens escorted them to the morning room. Heavily panelled in dark wood with only narrow windows and sombre furnishings, this gloomy chamber did little to dispel their sombreness. Even Red was subdued.

‘Who do you reckon did it?’ William asked quietly.

‘A hobo?’ Red offered feebly. ‘What you folks call a tramp?’

Lord Luckens snorted. ‘Not blasted likely. Jonathan had discovered which of you is the false claimant to the estate, and he was about to expose you. Took the gun to defend himself when he tackled you. Instead you walked in and shot him. Quite obvious, isn’t it? A child of ten could see that.’

‘Not so obvious,’ William retorted, though not so fiercely as usual. ‘Why should he expose one of us? If one of us is knocked from the running, the other one is thereby proven as the true heir. Of course, my hot-headed friend here could well have lost his temper with Jonathan last night.’

Red did not reply immediately and, when he did, like William his heart did not seem to be in his protestations. ‘Listen, pal, if I wanted to kill a man, I’d do it honestly. With the fists I was given to fight with, man to man. How would I get a firearm in this country anyway? This here holster came over empty and it’s stayed empty.’

‘Smith and Wessons are American,’ William snapped back.

‘Sure, and it’s the right of every American citizen, including you, bucko, to carry one.’

‘In defence of others, I believe,’ Auguste intervened, ‘not in defence of his entitlement to a title and money. I have one question to ask both of you before I make my report to the police, and it’s this: which of you did Jonathan Luckens ask to see first last night? There wasn’t an opportunity in the banqueting house, so it must have been here, in his room.’

‘Not me,’ William came in promptly.

‘Nor me,’ Red said earnestly.

‘Suppose they both went,’ Lord Luckens growled. ‘Thought of that?’

‘We didn’t, Grandpappy,’ Red assured him. ‘Why, speaking for myself, I slept like a babby all night.’

‘Says you,’ William snarled.

Auguste was puzzled. This was all very odd. After the police had been notified, he left them to return to the kitchen, for he needed room to think and breakfast. Both were possible since the servants taking theirs in the servants’ hall. What should he have? All he could face was a drink of soothing chocolate. Then his eye fell on the humble egg. An egg!

One could always rely on an egg. Unassuming, nutritious, the self-sacrificing base of the most perfect dishes in the world. Who thought of the egg while a bavarois was in one’s mouth? Who thought of the egg while a sauce hollandaise eased itself into one’s stomach? Yes, he would boil himself an egg, plain and unadorned, perhaps with soldiers, as in the English fashion, crustless buttered bread cut into strips.

Eagerly, Auguste placed the egg in the boiling water, turned the ornamental egg timer, from Alum Bay no doubt, upside down for the coloured sands to run through, and prepared lovingly to watch the cooking of his breakfast.

Coloured sands? Alum Bay? Queen Victoria? Egg timer ? He stared at it hypnotised, as first the solution of the case of the missing heir and then that of the murder of Jonathan Luckens clarified in his mind like heated butter. It was as plain as a boiled egg..

‘Well?’ Lord Luckens demanded, after Auguste had requested a private interview.

‘Which of them did it?’

‘I prefer to tell you which is the impostor.’

‘Same thing.’

‘Not necessarily.’

‘Have it your own blasted way then. Just tell me.’

‘Red Luckens is a fraud. I am convinced he has never been near a silver mine in his life, for hominy grits is a southern dish and Colorado is not in the south of the United States. Also, he is, like a neatly trimmed poached egg, too good to be naturally true.’

‘So William’s my grandson then,’ Lord Luckens said glumly. ‘Pity. Red has more spunk in him. Still, it’s better than the estate going to Queen Victoria, God bless her. And Red killed Jonathan. Might have guessed it.’

‘No, sir.’

‘So it was William shot him,’ Lord Luckens said immediately. ‘He knew Jonathan had got it the wrong way round, and wasn’t going to risk his precious inheritance vanishing.’

‘No, sir. William as well as Red is an impostor. That letter must surely have been forged, for he wrote, “Wait till you see Denver”, as though it would be his wife’s first visit. In fact, William purports to have been born there, so that is impossible. I was puzzled by their apparently amicable private conversation at the banquet, and suspect they were discussing their spoils.’

‘You’re raving, Didier. How can both of them be impostors? There wouldn’t be any spoils to discuss.’