The Devil's Feast Read online

  “I planned that, once the great banquet was done, my soup kitchen would follow. Mr. Prestage is making me a giant boiler to produce the quantities of heat and soup I shall need.”

  “You are indefatigable, Monsieur Soyer.”

  “As I say, there is always time. Though I am very busy, it is true.” He suppressed a yawn.

  “I will not detain you any longer.”

  “But I have an idea! Come out with me tonight. I planned to go to the Provence Hotel. Francobaldi will be there. We will see him together. And I had thought to call on Ude. You will see if they are well for yourself. And, in the middle, the theater.”

  “Well, I—” In truth, I already felt quite done up, and I did not relish the thought of breaking in on the solemn Monsieur Ude. “I should be delighted!”

  “Excellent!” Soyer turned back to his desk and its papers. He picked up a little enamel box, from which he extracted what appeared to be a tiny pill and put it on his tongue.

  “Even I occasionally require a pick-me-up,” he said.

  • • •

  ANOTHER OF THE REFORM’S public rooms, this one off the gallery on the first floor. Thickly carpeted, richly decorated, all gilded cornices, marble columns and deep tub chairs, deserted but for four committee members—Lord Marcus Hill, Captain Beare, the sardonic Mr. Molesworth and the plump Mr. Ellice—and myself.

  There was, of course, dismay at Wakley’s verdict of arsenic poisoning and the possibility of contamination in the kitchen. Molesworth remained insistently detached and half amused by everything.

  “Given the sensitive nature of the negotiations attached to the banquet, I think we cannot rule out deliberate mischief on the part of our enemies. We must consider whether the Russians might be at the bottom of this,” said Ellice, somewhat dramatically. “They are well known to be devious, and famous for poisoning their opponents.”

  “That Muscovite exile who was murdered in Piccadilly some years ago was poisoned by the Russians,” said Captain Beare darkly.

  It all sounded outlandishly farfetched and implausible to me but, to my surprise, Lord Marcus seemed to take it seriously.

  “Palmerston does say that there are at least three Russian secret police currently watching a group of Russian émigrés in Soho,” said he. “They report regularly to the Russian military attaché. The government has them watched, but there is always the possibility that they might have recruited an English assassin. I must say that Ambassador Brunnov seems to me a very good sort. Very keen on good Anglo-Russian relations. I would be surprised if he were mixed up in anything like this.”

  I was skeptical, but I had been wrong before, very wrong. I moved the meeting on. I asked them if they could think of anything that connected Cunningham, the man who had fallen sick in the street, with Rowlands.

  “As founder of the club, I should like to say a few words about Everett Cunningham,” Ellice said, and then gave a long disquisition. I think I should have wept if it had been my obituary, for Cunningham seemed to have spent his whole life eating club dinners, reading The Times and occasionally sitting in Parliament as a Whig MP.

  “The two deceased were both Whigs,” I observed.

  “We are all the same party now,” said Lord Marcus smoothly. “Whig and radical, we are all liberals, all for progress.”

  “Are we?” said Molesworth. “I increasingly wonder if we have anything in common.”

  “William!” said Lord Marcus. “Please try to be a little more”—I guessed he would say “discreet,” but instead he said, “courteous in front of our guest.”

  “So what will you do now, Captain Avery?” asked Mr. Ellice.

  The question was starting to annoy me.

  “I shall be searching out all possible uses of arsenic in the club and at Mr. Rowlands’s lodgings in case he ingested it accidentally. I shall be visiting last night’s dinner guests, with particular attention to those who sat on either side of him: Mr. Duncombe and the chef, Mr. Francobaldi.”

  Molesworth sighed. “The thought of Duncombe poisoning anyone is quite preposterous.”

  “Have you considered taking a good look at the kitchen?” said Captain Beare. “As I said earlier, I am not convinced all is quite as it should be down there. If I were you, I should be inclined to make a close study of the staff.”

  To protests from Lord Marcus and Ellice, he said gruffly, “Stands to reason it is the most likely place the arsenic came from, and the most likely place it would have been administered.”

  “We must consider the foreign angle,” said Lord Marcus.

  “Ellice’s precious Russians!” said Molesworth.

  “William, if you cannot take the matter seriously, I am not sure you have any reason to be here,” said Lord Marcus.

  “I take it extremely seriously,” said Molesworth coldly. “It was I who brought Wakley in, which is why we now have the diagnosis. I thought time was of the essence. Why are we wasting Captain Avery’s time? He should be pursuing his inquiries.”

  “When it comes to foreign matters, gentlemen, I am ignorant,” I said. “Sir Theophilus Collinson is the only man I—”

  “But Collinson is the very man to speak to,” said Lord Marcus. “He will be at the banquet. A capital idea!”

  “Are we done, gentlemen?” said Molesworth.

  “There was one last incident of which we should apprise you,” said Lord Marcus. “Mr. Duncombe came in today, asking if anyone had seen Rowlands.”

  “And he was informed of his death?” I said.

  “N‒o,” Lord Marcus managed to turn the word into two syllables.

  “No?”

  Ellice said, “Mr. Scott was told that the matter required discretion. He said the gentleman was not on the premises.”

  “Gentlemen, there is discretion, and there is tying oneself into knots,” I said. “I cannot see that any good can come of trying to hide Mr. Rowlands’s death. It will come out, one way or another. The footmen seem to know of it, and the kitchen staff who spent the morning scrubbing and throwing away the leftovers will know something untoward has taken place.”

  “We must ask Scott to have a word with them,” said Lord Marcus.

  “The fact is,” Mr. Ellice said, “it could be very bad for the club if the news were to be known too widely. The last thing we want is sinister half-truths and innuendo. If you are to visit Duncombe, perhaps you might ask for his discretion . . . ?”

  I agreed, reluctantly.

  “Captain Avery, it has been a most exhausting day for you. Might I offer you dinner?” said Lord Marcus.

  “That is most generous of you, Lord Marcus,” I said, much surprised. “I am so sorry, I have arranged to spend the evening with Monsieur Soyer. I thought it would be useful.”

  “With Soyer?” said Captain Beare. “Good God! You choose a servant over a lord! I urge you not to forget yourself, Avery. You have been engaged to look after the interests of the club, not those of Monsieur Soyer.”

  “Are not the two interconnected, sir?” I said coldly.

  “And ‘engaged’ is not the right word at all, Beare,” said Lord Marcus. “We are fortunate that the captain is good enough to help us. And it makes sense for him to acquaint himself better with Soyer, who is not merely key to our banquet but also exceedingly amusing and talented.”

  “Do not get too friendly with him,” said Captain Beare. “I know him better than you, and I would not trust him.”

  Chapter Six

  The revelation of Rowlands’s poisoning had thrown me into confusion. Once the shock had subsided, once one started to think, there were so many possible threads to follow. When Blake was faced with an inquiry, he seemed to find his way through so smoothly. But how did he select the most persuasive directions, or decide what was significant and what was not? When I considered my own situation, I hardly knew where to begin. There was Wa
kley’s proposition of accidental contamination and the possibility that a supplier might have delivered tainted food. There was Captain Beare’s accusation that something was wrong in the kitchen itself—unlikely, it seemed to me, given the remarkable showing of the day before and Soyer’s elevated reputation. There were Lord Marcus’s damned Russians, but I had absolutely no idea how I might tackle them—a gun and my fists were my usual weapons; I had no talent for espionage. And there was my sense—or was I over-egging it?—that the club was full of political divisions to which it did not like to admit. But the world of English politics, however acrimonious the battles of words, was the most civilized in the world, and hardly a place of murderous intentions.

  It was midafternoon. I felt I had to act. I resolved to call on the guests at the dinner to see if any of them had succumbed to sickness, if they might have anything to tell me about Rowlands, or if they might prompt my suspicions, and then to visit Rowlands’s lodgings to see what more I could learn about him. I was glad to get away; the Reform’s luxury was most alluring, but my new obligation weighed upon me and the place had begun to seem a mite oppressive.

  The outing, however, was frustrating. Duncombe was out, nor was Mr. Blackwell at his address, and at Bramah and Prestage on Piccadilly I was told Mr. Prestage was at his iron foundry in Pimlico. I left messages asking whether I might call the next day, and wrote to Jerrold asking him to dine with me at the Reform the following evening.

  At Rowlands’s lodgings it became plain that among my duties would be breaking the news of his demise to his servants. I had some experience of this from India, but it was never an easy matter. I learned little save that Rowlands had been a man of expensive tastes and his servants had liked him enough to weep for him. The walls were neither green nor yellow; there were no green waistcoats in his wardrobe. The cook looked at me as if I were mad when I asked if the dead man’s bed had been troubled by bedbugs. She asked if I knew if the servants would be let go on full pay. There had been no recent dismissals, no lady visitors (he had been most discreet about such things, his valet said, and visited just one very respectable establishment, whose address he furnished me with). He was, they intimated, a nice, easygoing young man who spent a good deal of time at his tailor’s, hatter’s and bootmaker’s, riding in the park, attending the races and taking whitebait dinners in Greenwich, when he was not at the Reform or Brooks’s Club, of which he was also a member—as any young gentleman of means about town would be. Of his friends, they named “that Mr. Duncombe” and several younger, fashionable gents about town. Of his engagement in politics, they were not sure, but they thought he was a Whig. As for his health, the valet said—between noisy blasts on a handkerchief—Mr. Rowlands had taken the occasional blue or white pill, he was quite partial to a tonic and used several pharmacists. There were lines of bottles of proprietary medicines in his dressing room, all of which I should have liked to have taken with me. As it was, I pocketed two small, unmarked vials when the valet’s back was turned.

  I could have called on Collinson to inquire about the Russians, but I could not stomach another sighting of him so soon, and I hoped to have my answer from Blake before I did so. I considered going to the Marshalsea but reckoned I would not have time to get there and leave before the prison closed. I resolved to go in the morning. Exasperated, I returned to the Reform and went to observe the kitchen, as Captain Beare had suggested.

  Pacing the kitchens—the staff largely ignored me, though a few were curious and some disliked me watching them—I found myself in a part I did not recognize. There was a great dresser on which piles of clean crockery were stacked. To the side of it stood a boy, dripping with water and carrying a sack. He cowered in the shadow of three large receptacles tightly covered in hessian. A door next to the boy was flung open and a great, heavyset man appeared. He was not tall but forbiddingly stocky, with fists like hams and hair shaved to the skull, a great swollen nose and a complexion like raw veal. The dripping boy visibly shrank from him.

  “You come back here!” the ogre shouted. He picked the boy up as if he were no more than a bit of rag, then dealt him a blow on the head that left him stunned. “Get in there,” he said, and almost threw the boy through the doorway, following on behind and slamming the door behind him.

  As I followed after them, another boy stepped out to detain me.

  “Oh, sir, your honor, sir, you cannot go in there.”

  “Why not?”

  “’Tis the scullery, sir. Gentleman don’t want to see that.”

  “I am on Monsieur Soyer’s business,” I said.

  The boy looked nervous. “No, sir, please. It’s not for the likes of you.” But I pushed past him—as gently as I could—and he was forced to stand to one side.

  The stocky ogre was beating the boy with all the force at his disposal. The child was insensible, sagging like the sack he had dropped. At a line of basins, scullery maids were washing mountains of pans, their attention determinedly set upon their task.

  “What is the meaning of this?” I shouted. The ogre tossed the boy onto the floor. A seam of blood trickled from the child’s nose. Several of the scullery maids looked up.

  “You taken the wrong door, mister,” said the ogre. “This ain’t no business of yours.” The scullery maids shrank slightly as he spoke.

  “Who are you?”

  “Gimbell, head kitchen porter.”

  “The boy.” I said, trying to get to the child. Gimbell barred my way.

  “I tell you sir, t’ain’t none of your business. He’s the vermin boy. Disobedient, don’t do his work, needed a lesson. He’ll be right enough.”

  The scullery door opened. The boy who had tried to stop me was accompanied by a young man in a black suit with inky fingers, clearly a clerk.

  “Ah, Captain Avery, Mr. Percy is looking for you! Time to go. This is Mr. G.’s realm. We should not trespass.”

  “Have you seen this boy?”

  The clerk eyed the small heap on the floor. He smiled nervously.

  “Mr. G.?”

  “He’ll be right as rain,” said Gimbell unreassuringly. “You understand. We’ll take care of him. Don’t you worry. You there”—he pointed to one of the scullery maids—“bring him a cup of water.”

  The girl picked up a chipped cup and a cloth and came over to the boy. She crouched down next to him, trying not to soak her skirts, for the floor was very wet, and began to dab at his nose. He opened his eyes slowly and looked at her.

  “No harm done,” said Gimbell.

  “Out we go, sir,” said the kitchen clerk, hustling me forward politely. Reluctantly, I allowed myself to be pushed out. It was as ugly a scene as I had witnessed anywhere for some time, and not something I had expected to see in a place such as this. It was clear, too, that I was not supposed to have seen it. I wondered how much Soyer knew about his scullery. I could not like a man who countenanced such cruelty toward children.

  I shot the porter as chilly a look as I could and left.

  “Here,” said the young man with inky fingers, and he stopped by the kitchen clerk’s desk, where an almost identical young man was busily making notes. “Mr. Percy will be with you directly.” He trotted away before I could press him on what I had witnessed.

  I suspected Mr. Percy was not coming at all and it had merely been a ruse to get me from the scullery. Still, the principal kitchen was not without interest. It was almost six o’clock and dishes were being prepared for the evening. A line of chefs was laboring in comparative tranquility, whisking, stirring, sprinkling, and constantly tasting a row of viscous liquids: sauces, broths and soups. In the middle was a young man with unruly, straw-colored hair and an air of great calm, working on a large bowl of yellow, creamy liquid. There was something both winning and proficient about him. He lifted the bowl up and gazed closely at its content, sniffed it, tasted it, then beckoned one of his fellows to taste it, too, then smi
lingly passed it on to him to finish. Then he proceeded to inspect the others’ creations: bending low over them, tasting, seasoning, making suggestions in what I realized was French. Meanwhile, simpering kitchen maids (did I mention this paragon was also, though visibly dripping with the heat, quite handsome?) came to collect the concoctions from him to take them to some warming closet, or brought some piece of meat or fish to be dressed.

  I shifted myself around until I was now in the corner of the roasting kitchen. There were fires and ranges on all sides, and it was fiendishly hot and ruled, I quickly gathered, by a small and furious gray-haired man with a neat mustache who was passionately dissatisfied with every morsel that emerged from oven, pan or spit. The younger cooks, meanwhile, repeatedly tried to get each other into trouble. One young man in particular, with black, greasy hair and a smirk, seemed to be at the center of these games and took special pleasure in them. For the rest, tempers seemed on the edge of breaking. That any completed dishes could emerge from such place seemed a miracle, and yet every few moments joints and filets issued forth and went off for dressing.

  All at once the small, gray-haired man screamed at the top of his voice. He was brandishing a big knife at a miserable young cook and seemed to have taken leave of his senses. For a moment I thought he might stab the cook or bring the blade down upon his fingers. Instead, he smacked the boy with the side of the knife, then threw it down, picked up a plate and smashed it upon the floor, before stalking away. The greasy young man smirked.

  I turned to find myself the object of Monsieur Morel’s melancholy gaze. “May I help you, Capitaine?”

  “I hope I am not intruding?” Helpfully, he did not dispute it. “I wished to learn a little more about the workings of the kitchen,” I said.

  “Have you learned anything”—he paused, and folded his arms—“useful?”

  “Well, I wished to ask about the scullery—”

  “You saw the great buckets covered in sacking? It is a great shame. So much food put to waste. If there is even the smallest possibility that le pauvre Monsieur Rowlands was harmed by something he ate, nothing can be left.”