The Devil's Feast Read online

  “I shall be a moment,” I told him. “They will be voting on whether to dismiss Soyer,” I said to Blake. “What shall I say?”

  He turned me round and began to brush down my shoulders and my lapels. “Do you think he should be dismissed?”

  “No.” Then, “I do not know. My instincts say that it would be an injustice. But there is a chance that it might all stop if he were gone. Then again, it might not.”

  “Do you think finding the culprit will be easier if he is gone?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then he needs defending.”

  “And who am I to do that?”

  “You’re a hero with real decorations. Most of these men have spent the last twenty years on their arses. Lay it on with a trowel. Remind them that if they cut the head off they haven’t cured the body, they’ve killed it.”

  He was still fussing over my lapels. I pushed him away. “Blake, you are not my actual valet!”

  He clicked his teeth. “Have you seen yourself?”

  I said, “Your mustache is askew.”

  • • •

  THERE WERE APPROXIMATELY twenty men in the room, most in middle age, heads short of hair but faces with graying whiskers, each man vehemently arguing with another. It was like a convention of bad-tempered, frock-coated uncles. Lord Marcus was holding hard to the shreds of a smile but was unable to quieten his fellow committee members. Mr. Molesworth, as usual, looked amused. Captain Beare was smug, and the flabby-faced Mr. Ellice looked fretful and angry. To one side, listless and useless, stood Mr. Scott.

  Lord Marcus raised his hands to plead for quiet.

  “Gentlemen, as I said, we have already taken steps to resolve the predicament in which we find ourselves. Two days ago, we secured the services of Captain William Avery, of whom many of you will have heard. I have every confidence that he will swiftly discover the root of our troubles.”

  “He has not done very well so far!” someone called out.

  “Who is Captain Avery to address us thus?” said another.

  Mr. Ellice levered himself from his chair and, almost proprietorially, propelled me forward with his haunch-like arm. “Perhaps you would introduce yourself?”

  Wincing a little, I listed my accomplishments.

  “Did you not have a colleague?” someone shouted. “A man with one eye?”

  “No, with one finger?”

  “Yes. Mr. Blake, I am afraid—”

  “—Mr. Blake is unavailable,” Lord Marcus interceded.

  “The other characteristic of Captain Avery, of course,” said Mr. Molesworth, “is that he is a Tory.”

  There was a surge of grousing and griping. Lord Marcus Hill eyed Molesworth crossly.

  “Captain Avery has an excellent reputation, for discretion as much as for the success of his inquiries,” he said. “Would you not have us secure the services of the best?”

  “If he is a Tory, he should not be within the perimeters of this club at all!”

  There were a number of “ayes.” Someone shouted, “When was the last time you discussed politics within the perimeters of this club? I should say never! You are always far too intent on your dinner!”

  A guffaw of laughter.

  I felt quite ready to leave the meeting and the club forever. Then I thought of Matty, and Soyer, and Blake’s chance to redeem himself.

  “Gentlemen, it is true that I am a Tory born and bred. But my colleague, Jeremiah Blake, is a radical—more a radical, I daresay, than any of you. That has not prevented us from working most fruitfully together, or from my admiring him—despite his many, many, many faults—almost above any man.”

  There was a certain amount of grumbling, but my words seemed to placate my audience.

  “Tell us what you have found,” said Lord Marcus.

  “Gentlemen,” I said, “as Lord Marcus said, I was asked to look into the death of Mr. Rowlands. I have established beyond doubt that Mr. Rowlands died of arsenic poisoning and was a serial imbiber of arsenic-based tonics—”

  “Are you claiming that Mr. Addiscomb and his friends were also indulging in arsenic eating?” someone called out.

  “No, no, not at all,” I said. “I merely wish to show that I can work quickly and effectively. I heard of this new death only hours ago.” I paused. “I am in the process of interviewing all the kitchen staff. A highly respected coroner and surgeon is examining the body as we speak. The police are on their way. I am confident we will discover the perpetrator of these crimes and his reasons.”

  “Before the banquet?”

  I swallowed painfully. “I will do my best,” I said.

  Once again, order dissolved into shouts and arguments.

  Now Captain Beare raised his voice.

  “I thank Captain Avery for his most edifying report,” he shouted gruffly, “but to sum up—we must mourn the passing of Everett Cunningham, Charles Rowlands and Ralph Addiscomb, while Henry Rickards lies abed, fighting for his life. Two kitchen maids nearly died over three weeks ago. And the fact remains that our kitchen, under the command of our so-called culinary genius, Alexis Soyer, is responsible.”

  Roars and boos. I wondered how Beare knew about the kitchen maids.

  Once the committee quietened, Molesworth stood up, remarkably placid, raised his hand and waited for the room to attend him.

  “As you know, I am rarely to be found on the same side as Captain Beare. But on this occasion it seems to me that our priority must be the protection of the club itself. This state of affairs will soon be public knowledge. As Captain Avery says, the police are on their way. Unfortunate though it is, it seems to me that there is one thing the club must do, and that is to cancel the banquet and to divest itself of Monsieur Soyer.”

  There was another great explosion of debate.

  Mr. Ellice stood up as energetically as his considerable girth would allow.

  “This is absurd! As the founder of the club, I say we cannot cancel the banquet.”

  Almost without thinking, my eyes slid over to Molesworth. He did his best to hide it, but he flinched when Ellice reiterated his claim to the club.

  “It was to be the pinnacle of the club’s achievements,” Ellice was saying, “our apotheosis. Every newspaper in the land is already primed to write of it, and is scrambling to discover the menu. Are we willing to let it come to nothing? Can you not see how humiliating it would be to have to cancel the banquet at this late stage? How it would besmirch Lord Palmerston’s standing? No foreign consul would ever take us seriously again. If we cancel it and dismiss Soyer, it will certainly put a great hole in the reputation of the club, and the party. We would be regarded as ridiculous—unfit to organize a dinner, let alone a foreign policy.” I must admit I was surprised: I had not imagined him capable of such energy.

  “Could we not find another chef?” asked one of the members.

  “Find another chef? We cannot simply ‘find’ some other chef to orchestrate a dinner for three hundred. There is no one with Soyer’s reputation or abilities. He has spent months and months planning this dinner. It will be an unrepeatable event.”

  “A monument to Soyer, more like,” said Captain Beare. Several members snorted.

  “In any event, the cancelation of the dinner is not within our power,” Ellice said, breathing heavily. “It was, after all, ordered and organized by Lord Palmerston and the party.”

  “Are we not paying for it? Is it not on our premises?”

  “We have already recouped our costs in the contributions of the diners.”

  There were a few minutes of bickering.

  “The fact remains,” said Molesworth, “that three of our members have died of poisoning after consuming food from the club’s kitchens. The only persons who truly lose by the cancelation of this dinner are the Whig leaders. Some of us believe that Lord Palmersto
n would benefit from a little dent in his reputation. Perhaps then he would be a little less keen to start his little wars.”

  “If I may put in my ha’penny worth, gentlemen,” said Lord Marcus, “I think we are being precipitous. We have already agreed to close. May I ask that we set aside our personal prejudices and divisions and think only of the club?”

  “Are we not doing that already?” said Molesworth.

  Lord Marcus straightened his shoulders and set his chin. “Mr. Molesworth, I beg you to put aside party advantage. You know well where your arguments tend.”

  “And where is that?”

  “To a renewed division between Whigs and radicals which can do neither side any good and which may lead to the possible dissolution of the club.”

  “If there are any more deaths, that will come to pass anyway,” Molesworth snapped.

  The meeting erupted again.

  “I move we go to a vote to ask Monsieur Soyer for his resignation and to cancel the banquet,” called Molesworth.

  “Gentlemen! Quiet, please!” said Lord Marcus. “Mr. Molesworth, I am the chairman of the committee, and I decide on the motions and when they take place.”

  “You cannot deny us a vote.”

  “But I may decide when it will come.”

  Heated exchanges regarding Soyer’s future continued for several minutes. At last, I raised my hand.

  Lord Marcus stood. “Let us give Captain Avery the floor.”

  “Gentlemen, since you have not actually disputed my continuing engagement in these matters, I assume that you agree to my staying on to investigate. May I make a small point? Decide what you must about your banquet, but consider, if you were to rid yourselves of Monsieur Soyer, you would be left with a kitchen in which poison still lurks and with no one to lead it. Who knows the kitchen, the staff and those who supply it as Monsieur Soyer does? Personally, I feel his advice and experience are vital to my inquiries.”

  “Are you quite certain”—one man stood up and coughed—“that Soyer himself is not the author of these crimes?”

  “I would stake my reputation upon it.”

  “Do you suspect anyone, Captain Avery?”

  “Well, I—” Every time I answered such a question, I felt I was giving a hostage to fortune. “We are inquiring into a number of possible reasons for the poisoning. But it seems to me that the stout-hearted British way would be to stand by Monsieur Soyer.”

  “To stand by our French upstart!” one man quipped.

  “Might I request that you consider one more thing?” I felt awkward raising the matter, but I had promised Mr. Percy. “The club’s senior staff have asked me to request that you consider paying wages while the club is closed. As you can imagine, the kitchen is very anxious; morale is low. I believe that such a promise will raise their spirits and ensure cooperation, while, of course, ensuring they do not go hungry.”

  The audience grumbled again. Mr. Ellice shook his head. Captain Beare said irritably, “To ensure cooperation? It is from them that our troubles come in the first place. They should need no encouragement to cooperate!”

  Lord Marcus beckoned Mr. Scott and asked him to report on the club’s finances.

  Bowing and scraping in an almost unbearably ingratiating manner (though the committee apparently did not find it so), Scott told his audience that the club’s finances were under a good deal of pressure. It simply would not be practical to pay the kitchen staff if the club were closed.

  The entire committee nodded their heads.

  That being decided, Molesworth asked whether they were ready to vote upon Soyer.

  “Is this entirely necessary?” said Lord Marcus. “Do we truly wish to lose our greatest asset?”

  “And there is the matter of the banquet,” said Molesworth.

  “May I also add, as a little fillip to our proceedings,” Mr. Scott suddenly interrupted, almost fluttering his eyelashes at the committee, “that I believe the club’s predicament may be resolved sooner than expected. Captain Avery has—no doubt out of scruple and caution—forborne to inform you that there is a suspect. I am told that witnesses have come forward with evidence which may implicate a certain kitchen maid. The police are coming, and they will certainly be interviewing the girl and making inquiries. It is just possible that an arrest may soon be made.”

  Shouts, cheers, ejaculations of shock. I wondered how Scott knew about Matty.

  “May I venture that, while the committee may feel it necessary to cancel the banquet, we may not need to keep the club closed for long.”

  Lord Marcus proposed the two votes.

  Thus I saw exactly how Mr. Scott kept his job.

  • • •

  WHEN I RETURNED to the kitchen this time, it was eerily quiet and dark. Most of the staff had left; in all but the main kitchen, the flaring gaslights had been extinguished. Here, Soyer stood in his apron before one of the large gas ranges. Next to him were three long golden French loaves, the ones known as baguettes. Monsieur Perrin bustled around him.

  At the twelve-sided table sat Mr. Percy and Morel, and slightly apart from them, Mrs. Relph, talking quietly to Matty. To one side, Blake was examining a row of broiling stoves and warming pans, no doubt trying to determine their mechanisms.

  Everyone but Soyer looked up expectantly.

  “Captain Avery?” To my surprise, it was the usually reticent Morel.

  “Monsieur Soyer won a vote of confidence,” I said, “but the banquet has been canceled.”

  Morel cast about almost wildly, put his hand to his forehead, then let it fall.

  “It is the correct decision,” said Soyer, and came over and patted Morel on the shoulder.

  “There is more—”

  “Eh bien, Captain Avery, it must wait. We will eat, then we will decide what to do next.”

  “But—”

  “Let us have a little calm before the storm,” Soyer said. And I thought: he knows. “Capitaine, will you sit with the kitchen staff and risk my cooking, like these brave souls here? And you, too, Mr. Maguire—if the captain will allow it?” I nodded awkwardly. “We shall have a good late lunch. There is bread from Durand, the best baker in St. Martin’s Lane. Morel and I bought it ourselves. Coffee, also purchased by me and made by my dear Morel. Fine, clean, simple food! And an omelette aux fines herbes with a little salad to whet the appetite. The eggs and cream are from Durand, too.”

  It occurred to me that I had never seen Soyer cook. He took a long phosphorous match and placed it against a pipe in one of the compartments on the top of the vast stove. In a moment, a flame danced up. He did the same with a second compartment, and set a frying pan on each. With nonchalant elegance, he cracked a dozen eggs one by one into a white china bowl, then filled his fingers with salt from one of the little crocks nearby and cast it across the mixture. He did the same with a pinch of ground pepper, then poured from a jug a stream of thick cream into the eggs. He beat them briskly with a fork in wide circles, his hands moving with the same easy grace and precision as I had noted in Perrin. The eggs seemed almost to leap into the air as the whisk lifted them up and brought them back into the bowl. Soyer placed a perfect square of lemon-white butter into each frying pan and brandished each pan in turn over its flame. The butter began to emit a very gentle hiss. Then he seized the white bowl and poured out the mixture, dividing it between the two pans and stirring each gently with a wooden spoon. The butter in the pans hissed louder. For a few seconds he simply watched the mixture settle, then he added a pinch of herbs to both and began carefully to agitate the pans, one and then the other, and, taking up a metal tool rather like a flat spade, worked quickly around the edges of each, prodding, scooping and tucking. After some minutes he picked up each pan and tapped it on the stove, then he turned a knob on the front of the range and, miracle of miracles, the flame was at once extinguished.

  He set
down the pans where the flame had been. The egg mixture continued to sizzle and steam. When the hissing ceased, he took his metal tool and folded each omelet upon itself. Then he tipped each pan, letting the concoction slip elegantly onto a large blue plate. This he brought to the table: two perfect, soft, unblemished yellow semicircles, smooth and shiny as porcelain. Mr. Percy divided them neatly among eight plates. Perrin put a little salad onto each plate and broke the bread with his hands, and we all came to the table.

  “Un repas paysan,” Soyer said, “the food of peasants. Honest, and none the worse for that.” He picked up his bread, pulled opened the crust so the soft, velutinous white inside was exposed, pushed it into a piece of omelet, then lifted the dripping morsel to his lips and bit upon it.

  I cannot say that I did not hesitate, just a little, before I ate. I looked up to find Morel watching me, and took a large mouthful. It was perfect. If I am to die, I thought, this would not by any means be the worst way.

  “Mr. Maguire,” I heard Percy murmur to Blake, “we do not stand on ceremony down here. Please, remove your gloves while you eat—as long as your master is agreeable.”

  “Kind of you, Mr. Percy,” said Blake. “Truth to tell, my hands have suffered over the winter. They are somewhat unsightly and best kept covered. I rub a liniment of fuller’s earth onto them. The gloves help.”

  I watched Blake’s hands. As usual, the two middle fingers of his left glove were stuffed with cotton to make them appear whole and, of course, they did not bend. He had acquired a habit while he ate in company of keeping his left hand either in his lap or moving it quickly.

  “My friends,” Soyer said, “I should like to tell you a story, about the time I escaped the Paris mob during the July Revolution in 1830. Morel and Percy know it well, I fear. They must endure it once more. It was a bloody time. I was working for the First Minister, the Prince de Polignac, not a popular man. Much hated, in fact, at the time. I was barely twenty, with a dozen chefs beneath me. One night, the prince gave a grand banquet at the Foreign Office. Rioters and revolutionaries encircled the building and broke in as we were serving the entremets. They began to shoot at us and accused us of being traitors, and at the same time they grabbed at the food, tearing birds from the spits and overturning tables of pastries. Two of my fellow chefs were shot; one fell before my eyes. The doors were blocked, and there was no way out. Alors, what did I do? It is a sweltering night, but I had a cool head and a good singing voice. I rip off my apron, climb upon a table and I begin to sing our national song, ‘La Marseillaise,’ ‘Allons, enfants de la Patrie, Le jour de gloire est arrivé!’ My voice rises clear and strong and, gradually, others join it. The room begins to calm, the rioters cheer, lift me on their shoulders and carry me up the stairs to the great hall, still singing. Finally, I see a way out and manage to escape into the crowds.” With this, he took a mouthful of baguette and gave us all a triumphant smile.