The Devil's Feast Read online

  “By you.”

  “By the kitchen. But his office was chaos, and he was the chief reason that bills were late or lost, or not paid. At least at first. Complaints were made. We came to him and demanded explanations. He was—what is the phrase?—out of his depth, utterly. He knew that if his mismanagement was discovered, he would be dismissed on the spot. But somehow he realized that some of our bills did not concur with actual provisions. And when the committee began to ask questions, Scott gave them our bills. There were some inconsistencies.

  “I was called up to answer for them before the committee. It was humiliating. Let me swear to you, I myself have no need to do such things. I am the best-paid chef in London now; I have my own business interests. But my équipe are loyal to me, and I am loyal to them, and so I answered for them and took responsibility for these things. My enemies on the committee, and those who have little experience of the widespread nature of these matters, tabled my resignation. Instead, I was reprimanded, and my standing with the committee has been harmed. They are quicker to think ill of me now. However, I like to think it was not all for the worse. I banned those practices in my kitchen. No more gifts, no more skimming or padding. I told my staff that I would not tolerate them at the Reform. And now the kitchen produces its own accounts, separate from the rest of the club’s. We must be beyond reproach, and now we are, and we are independent of Scott, whose incompetence and bad morals have at last caught up with him.”

  “So the kitchen is honest now.”

  “Yes. Though I had to make examples. Some weeks after this, our butler was caught stealing spirits and once again demanding payments from certain wine merchants. It was not the first time. I dismissed him on the spot. I have not yet replaced him, but Percy admirably covers his duties.”

  “Who are your enemies on the committee, and why are they enemies?”

  “You know them—Beare and his friends. For lack of anything else, they now complain about the cost of ingredients.”

  “What about Molesworth?”

  “Molesworth? A courteous man of taste.”

  “He argued for your dismissal.”

  “He did?” Soyer looked most put out.

  “Who else were you protecting?”

  “I am sorry?”

  “Who was skimming and taking bribes?”

  “I would rather not say. It is not relevant to your recherche.”

  Blake scratched his head and turned the door handle.

  “The butler,” Soyer said heavily. “Several of the kitchen clerks—it is easy if you are ordering supplies and making the accounts. Two of them left.” He cleared his throat. “Gimbell was selling kitchen leftovers when they should have been made use of in the kitchen or distributed to the staff. There was a sprinkling of other things about the kitchen, fairly minor. A pastry cook who was taking flour and selling it, some commis who stole the small beer, a few such things. The butcher.”

  There was a silence. Blake came back into the room and stood over Soyer’s desk.

  “The butcher. Is that why Hastings Bland hates you so much?” he said.

  “Who? Oh, the meat supplier. A most uncouth, argumentative, boastful fellow.”

  “He said he was owed money. And he accuses you of buying bad meat cheaply.”

  “This is nonsense! We purchase only the best. We have on several occasions returned meat to him because it was not to our standard. He does not take kindly to criticism.”

  “Take care, Alexis, I must have the truth. Who orders and buys the meat?”

  “After Benoît, Morel and I have decided upon dishes, the butcher. And Percy.”

  Blake shot his hand out, grabbed Soyer’s shoulder and shook him.

  “The truth, for God’s sake!”

  “Eh bien!” Soyer said, looking for a moment quite terrified. “When money was short some months ago, the butcher and Percy acquired meat from someone I should not have patronized, had I known. It was a mistake, but they were attempting to help me. Bland somehow discovered and trumpeted this. It is possible Percy has been making matters difficult for him; it seems to me he deserves it.”

  “Not paying him and turning his orders away.”

  “It is possible.”

  “And Percy, since he oversees all the ordering and accounts, I suppose he was engaged in this stealing, too?”

  Soyer bowed his head. “You do not understand; in large kitchens, it is almost expected. And he is exceptional at his job.”

  “I want to speak to him.”

  “Now?”

  Blake nodded.

  “We have a banquet to prepare for, you know,” said Soyer.

  I went out and told a potboy to summon Percy.

  “So, Francobaldi—why do you tolerate him?” asked Blake.

  Soyer sighed again. His eyes strayed wistfully to the papers on his desk. “I pity him. He is a competent chef, good enough. But he will never be me. It pains him. I suppose he is spreading rumors?”

  “He says the kitchen is famed for its dishonesty. He suggested that you personally had dishonest financial arrangements.”

  Soyer smiled ruefully. “So, he does not accuse me of poisoning, at least.”

  “Would you think it of him?”

  “Of poisoning—non. He may strike out in sudden anger. But to make a plan slow and deadly? Non. I do not think so.”

  Blake nodded. “How bad are the club’s finances?”

  “I am but the chef; they would hardly inform me.”

  Blake waited.

  “The rumors about bankruptcy? I think they are started by those who do not wish the club well. There are in this club some of the richest men in the land. They are good for the money.”

  Percy came in. He looked at us quizzically.

  Blake made no attempt to play the manservant. “Mr. Percy, we’ve heard you have been padding and skimming the accounts.”

  Percy looked at Soyer, who gave a small nod. He rubbed his chin, and when he spoke he was brisk and cool and quite unabashed.

  “It is true. I did, but I do not anymore.”

  “So you admit you cheated your employer,” I said.

  “I did. I do not seek absolution for it; it was wrong.”

  “You felt no guilt?” I said.

  “Such things are not unusual in our business,” he said. “I know that is not an excuse, but I will try to explain it. It is not hard to be tempted when one works for men and institutions with incomes so much greater than anything one could ever hope to earn. I had worked long hours and very hard since I was a lad, and have done an excellent job for all my employers. One assumed they hardly noticed, if one added a few pennies here and there and, mostly, they did not. I do not proffer this as an excuse; it is simply the way it often is. Until the Reform, I did not believe I did much harm, when I saw what sums my employers were willing to lavish upon themselves in comparison to what they paid me.”

  “But you stopped,” said Blake.

  “Yes, for Chef’s sake, and because our kitchen is a special place. My actions brought opprobrium upon Monsieur Soyer, which I deeply regret. He took the reprimands himself and ensured we kept our jobs. It has weakened his hand with the committee. I should add that, in my opinion, Mr. Scott, who brought it all to the committee’s attention, was himself far from above reproach, quite apart from his ineptitude and bad morals.”

  He looked again at Soyer. “Might I get on? There is a great deal to do . . . Perrin needs various recipes.”

  “I think perhaps Morel has them. Do you have any more questions, gentlemen?” said Soyer.

  I silently inquired of Blake. He closed his palm.

  “No, indeed, and thank you for your time, Mr. Percy—and Monsieur Soyer.”

  • • •

  “FORGIVE ME,” I said to Blake when we were out in the kitchen, “but I cannot see tha
t we learned anything that gets us closer to our goal.”

  “I had to ask him,” said Blake. “What else can we do but examine every possibility?”

  Morel rushed past, seeming, if possible, more harassed than ever. Blake hailed him.

  “Monsewer Morel,” said Blake, “Mr. Percy is looking for you.”

  “I do not have time.”

  “Mr. Perrin needs some recipes.”

  “I do not have them!” Morel said, louder and more passionately than necessary. “And I have better things to do than to act as secretary to all the world. Matty copied them out; they are no doubt in Chef’s office, or with kitchen clerks. Perrin knows this!”

  “I know that you, Monsewer Morel, do not need recipes, as you know all the dishes by heart.”

  Morel seemed to relent a little. “It is a consequence of working so long in this trade: you commit all to memory. But you must excuse me.”

  Blake looked after him.

  “Are you any closer?” I pressed

  “Notions, notions, that’s all, Avery,” he said irritably, his eyes darting around the kitchen.

  Something caught his eye. A boy: a stolid, knowing creature with the obligatory smear of dark smut across his forehead and short, dark hair that stuck up at the back. He was on his way to the servants’ door. He carried a cloth messenger bag over his chest, and under this a sagging canvas coat and a gray muffler that had seen a deal of use. He looked like any of the hordes of ownerless boys in the capital, though more warmly dressed than many. The kitchen evidently knew him, as one of the pastry chefs had given him an apple, which he clutched appreciatively. Blake began to move. He did not take his eyes off him.

  “What?”

  “I’m following that boy.”

  “Here, little monkey,” called Perrin. The boy dodged the cooks and soldiers, and returned to the sauce chef, who took the boy’s chin in his hand and laughed, and pressed a new-baked bread roll into his palm. The boy grinned and thrust it deep in his pocket and went on his way, though not before casting an appraising, even envious, glance at the kitchen itself.

  “Who is he? Do you know him?” I said.

  Blake shrugged. “Delivery boy. Brought some jars of something for the kitchen. And collected something. See, his bag is tented. There’s something in it that wasn’t before.”

  “And?”

  “Let’s see,” he muttered, then “Sir,” more loudly.

  I let him help me into my coat and out we went, up the steps and left into Pall Mall toward the Carlton and St. James’s Palace.

  “There he is,” said Blake. The boy was walking jauntily some thirty yards ahead of us, feasting on his apple.

  “Blake, what is this? We have barely ten hours,” I pleaded. The boy waited for the crossing sweeper then ran across Pall Mall and turned off into the streets about St. James’s Square and my new lodgings. We followed him across King Street and up Duke Street—nipping at his apple until it was little more than a string of seeds and fibers, whereupon he flicked it into the gutter and pulled out the roll, from which he derived, if his swaggering back and bobbing head were any indication, a good deal of enjoyment—and emerged onto Piccadilly. Blake nodded at the boy and raised his brows.

  Past Burlington House, past Albemarle Street, where Ude lived, he went, then Dover Street, until he stood facing the Union Club. We looked at each other. The boy crossed the road and darted round the side of the club into the alley into which the club’s kitchens issued.

  “I’ll go,” I said.

  “I’ll go,” said Blake. “You’ll shine out like a virgin in a brothel. I’ll meet you down Piccadilly, by Fortnum’s.” Before I could protest, he had dug his head into his muffler and his hands into his pockets and was deep into the alley. I did as I was told and walked up to Fortnum & Mason grocers, taut with anticipation and at the same time worried that every moment we spent here might be better used elsewhere.

  “Spare a penny for a girl as has lost her good name? Captain?” It was the girl Margaret. She looked out from a lane that ran off Piccadilly, wrapped in a thin coat, a small bag resting by her feet.

  “And who was only too quick to destroy the good name of another, quite innocent girl.”

  “I was put up to it, I swear it. I’ll tell you everything. But you’ll have to pay me.” She paused.

  “So you admit it.”

  “I’m frightened.”

  I felt only revulsion. “Of Scott? Save your breath. I’m in a hurry.” I set off back down Piccadilly toward the Union Club. Blake stepped out in front of me.

  “Well? What did you discover?”

  “Not here.”

  Where does a master converse with his manservant except in the privacy of his rooms? We stepped into Green Park, avoiding the unfortunate women who crowded the place with their importuning.

  “He went into the Union’s kitchen. They let him in, knew him. He came out again after a good ten minutes, eating a tart—at least he’s not going hungry. Whatever was in the bag was gone.”

  “How could you tell?”

  “Edges were different, hung different.”

  “He might have moved it about.”

  “I know the lineaments of a bag. I was trained to it years ago. Package was gone.”

  “And then?”

  “He went to the end of Dover Street and then east toward Regent Street. I reckon he runs errands for one of the fancy spice shops. I ran up to him, looking out of puff, and asked him if he was the boy who had taken the papers from the Reform kitchen. He said he was. I said I’d been sent by Morel. He’d made a mistake and needed his papers back.”

  “Morel? That was a risk surely?”

  “Boy looked discomfited. He said he’d been told not to speak of such things. He stuttered. I said, ‘It’s all right, I know all about them. Can you give them back to me?’ He shook his head. I said, ‘You handed them into the Union kitchens?’ He nodded. I told him, ‘Never mind,’ just to continue as before and not to speak of it. He asked if they’d be cross with him. I said Mr. Morel wouldn’t because it was his mistake. He looked pretty down in the mouth, so I said I would square things with Mr. Francobaldi—which cheered him up tremendously.”

  “Morel? What are you saying?”

  “Morel is giving Soyer’s recipes to Francobaldi.”

  “That is preposterous. They hate each other.”

  “Do you remember when we began to interview the staff? Morel dropped his papers—notes on recipes, he said. Now he says he never uses recipes, and everyone in the kitchen knows it. Why else would he be copying out such things if not for someone else?”

  “Why would he betray Soyer, to whom he owes everything?”

  “Money.”

  I shook my head.

  “Or because he thinks Perrin will oust him. He certainly fears it.”

  “I will not believe it.”

  “Not everyone is as loyal as you, Avery. Morel is passing recipes to Francobaldi, and Francobaldi pays well for them, because he wants to be Soyer, but he hasn’t the talent.”

  “Do you believe they may be behind the poisonings after all?”

  “It is possible.” He looked blank. “The boy will meet us here in a few minutes, after he’s run his last errand. I told him I’d pay him for his trouble. Then we’ll return to the Reform and have it out with Morel.”

  • • •

  THE KITCHEN was in disorder. Nay, I should have called it uproar. Preparation and cooking seemed to have ceased entirely. Soldiers and cooks had retired into their own groups and were talking intently and excitedly among themselves. We pushed our way through the melee until I found myself opposite Mrs. Relph. For once, she was not angry with me.

  “Bless me, Captain Avery, what a time you have come at! The whole place is at sixes and sevens,” she said.

  “What news,
Mrs. Relph?”

  “Our Matty has been released! Mr. Percy sent the news about Mr. Scott leaving and Margaret’s dismissal to the sergeant who questioned her, and he agreed that there is nothing he can charge her with, though she is not all free of suspicion. We could do with her, but Chef says it may be best not to have her in the kitchen, just in case . . .”

  “That is capital news!” I said.

  “It is, sir, but then, not five minutes since, young Perrin was discovered putting something in the sauce. They say it’s arsenic.”

  “I cannot believe it!”

  “Describe it to us,” said Blake brusquely.

  She fixed him with an affronted look, but told us anyway.

  It transpired that Perrin had been at his station laboring over some final version of a grand sauce for the evening. He had in his hand a small pot from which he spooned a little white powder. He beckoned one of the junior cooks to come and taste it. The boy took a mouthful, swallowed it. After a moment, he told one of his colleagues that it had tasted odd, bitter and that his mouth felt strange.

  Perrin was standing at the sauce counter. Before him was a line of bowls full of broths, gravies and sauces ranging in color from gamey brown to the palest milk. The soldier shadowing Perrin took the little pot from him. Perrin was startled. He said he had just picked it up from the table; it was arrowroot, for thickening the sauce. He held it up to the light, close to his eyes. Another cook pointed out that the arrowroot was still on the table. The soldier took hold of Perrin, who began to protest. The vermin boy was called to look at the pot’s contents. He said he thought it was arsenic.

  Thus, all activity in the kitchen had ceased, and everyone had gathered around the principal kitchen to observe and murmur.

  “We are waiting for Chef,” said Mrs. Relph.

  We pushed our way to the front of the gathered. Perrin looked utterly bewildered and was saying over and over again, “Je ne comprends pas. Qu’est-ce qui se passe?” (I don’t understand. What is happening?) On either side of him was a soldier.