Chef Maurice and the Wrath of Grapes (Chef Maurice Culinary Mysteries Book 2) (22 page)

The bell was eventually answered by a highly flustered Mrs Bates, her hair flying out of its bun and a notepad in one hand.

“Mister Maurice, just who I needed to see! And Mister Arthur too, do come along in.” She grabbed them each by an elbow and hurried them down the hallway towards the kitchen. “Dinner for ten, and only a day’s notice! Sir William, he always made sure to give me at least five days’ warning, four at the very least. It’s not like I can conjure up a multi-course dinner out of an empty larder, what with no one having been here the last week, and not knowing what would happen to this place. I wasn’t going to go wasting money filling the pantry for no one to eat it up.”

“They’re having visitors already?” said Arthur.

“Not just visitors. A whole wine-tasting dinner! Inviting up all those fancy critics from London. Such bad taste, like dancing on the poor master’s grave, I said. But Mister Bertie was insistent. Though I’d bet he’s been put up to it by that French missus of his. She was talking about how it would raise the status of the chateau, having all those la-di-da wine snobs come up here to taste their wines. And so I said, what do you want to serve, and you know what she said?
I
should decide! The master, at least he always had one or two ideas, and of course I knew his tastes like they were my own. But for these two . . . ”

The kitchen table was a mess of cookbooks, handwritten recipes, and menu cards from past dinners thrown by Sir William over the years.

“And what with poor Gilles gone and disappeared like that, heaven knows what terrible things have happened to him . . . ”

“So you don’t share the opinion that Gilles was involved in some way with it all?”

Mrs Bates looked ready to ding Arthur across the head with a copper pan. “How dare you! Gilles has been nothing but devoted to Sir William, from the moment he set foot in the Hall. Always keeping an eye out for him. And Sir William, he trusted him more than any other soul in the world.”

“My apologies. So was it a shock to you, when you heard Sir William had left everything to young Bertie?” asked Arthur, keen to steer the conversation away from the contentious butler issue.

“Could have knocked me down with a goose feather, you could’ve!”

“Ah, so it was expected that Sir William would leave everything to Lady Margaret, or perhaps her son?” asked Chef Maurice.

Mrs Bates cocked her head. “That boy of hers, Timothy? Well, he isn’t a
real
Burton-Trent, I expect you know that, and in my opinion, Sir William didn’t think much of him and the crowd he ran with. Was quite pleased when he went off to America, I think. Not a
gentleman
, in my mind.

“No, we always thought, Gilles and I, that it’d all go to the charities. The master was always giving donations to this one and that. Of course, there’s annuities for me and Gilles, that was only right. In fact, Mrs Lafoute, shows she’s not all that bad”—she frowned, as if at pains to admit this fact—“wanted to increase my pension, and get me to stay on here a few more years. But what would I do, just me in a big house like this? It’s not like they’ll be here much, what with their fancy French chateau and all.”

Chef Maurice nodded while he leafed through the various menus strewn across the table. “Did Monsieur Bertie say which wines he wished to serve?”

“Mrs Lafoute, more like it,” said Mrs Bates, pulling a sheet out of the pile. “They’re starting with two whites, then it’s all the way up through the reds. And all Chateau Lafoute, of course.”

She handed Chef Maurice the piece of paper, which bore the now familiar curly hand of Ariane.

1848
(“
Mon dieu!
” exclaimed Chef Maurice.)

1901

1913

1928, in magnum

1945

1961, in magnum
(“
Oui
, a very good year.”)

1966, in magnum

1985

. . . and so on, fifteen wines in all.

“Like drinking a piece of history,” said Arthur, with a certain amount of envy.

Chef Maurice stared at the list with an intense look of concentration, his lips moving. After a while, his hand shot out.

“Pen!”

He spent a while scribbling on the back of a menu, with the occasional emphatic crossing out, and mutterings on the line of “
non
, too much lamb, perhaps a fish with the strong flesh,
oui
, that will go.” Eventually, he handed the finished product over for Mrs Bates’ inspection.

She ran an appraising eye down the list. “Very nice,” she said, nodding. “These three dishes, I can pre-prep them, so no problems there, good mix of flavours but nothing too overpowering. The timing’s good as well, no fighting for oven space. Still,” she added, drawing out the word as she gazed around the kitchen, “it’s a mighty big task to get it all done tomorrow by myself, by the time I get the deliveries in and all . . . ”

Chef Maurice, always highly attuned to a cook’s way of thinking, took the hint. He was faultlessly generous with his time when it came to those in need.

He was, also, faultlessly generous with everyone else’s.

“I will send to you my commis chef,” he said grandiosely. “
En tout cas
, Le Cochon Rouge is closed tomorrow. My sous-chef has asked for the evening off,” he added with a dark look.

“I see you didn’t volunteer your own services,” said Arthur, as they headed down into the wine cellar in search of the new master of the house.

“I would,
mon ami
, but I expect to be occupied tomorrow evening.”

“Really? With what?”

“The dinner, of course. It is most important that I attend. An idea comes to me . . . I think we become nearer to the solving of the crime. But there are things I must make certain first.”

“Like whether or not you’re invited?”

“
Mon ami
, one does not wait to be invited. I will arrange my own invitation.”

“Of course,” muttered Arthur. “So you think you’re on to something?”

“Ah, perhaps I speak too soon,” said Chef Maurice, rubbing his moustache. “But when I have made an arrangement of my ideas, I may require your help.”

Arthur groaned. “I had a feeling you might say that.” He turned his thoughts to more solvable mysteries. “It’s not like Patrick to ask for a day off. I wonder what he’s up to tomorrow?”

Patrick sat at the little desk in the cramped office of Le Cochon Rouge, pen and squared paper at the ready.

He’d been back and forth with himself about this part of the plan, but so far a better alternative had yet to present itself.

Still, he was loath to commit pen to paper and part with a recipe he’d been working on for several years. It had won him first place in the Regional Young Chef of the Year when he was first starting out, and he occasionally managed to persuade Chef Maurice to put it onto the specials menu, to unanimous rave reviews from their regular diners.

Many of his fellow chefs had begged for this recipe, made attempts to borrow his technique, or, in one particular case, resorted to a bungled attempt at theft—only to find that Patrick had never written it down—but he’d never had a reason to give in to their pleas.

Until now.

Because if he was going to win over the heart of a particular blonde policewoman, he needed all the help he could get.

With a heartfelt sigh, he picked up the pen.

Some ten minutes later, deed done, he folded the paper and slipped it into an envelope. Then he picked up his phone and typed:

It’s all yours. See you tomorrow.

They found Bertie at the back of the wine cellar, with a spiral-bound notebook, a pen and a good quantity of dust in his hair.

“Oh, hallo,” he said, scrambling up from his knees. “Good of you to visit, didn’t realise news would get round so soon.”

Chef Maurice pointed to the notebook. “You make an inventory?”

“Afraid so. They tell me Gilles stole the cellar book too, though I can’t fathom why. I can’t say it was a thrilling read, but at least it was all in there. Location of each bottle, place it was bought, price paid, all that stuff. It’s going to be all guesswork now.”

“I’m sure the police are bound to catch him at some point,” said Arthur. “Damn hard to disappear in this day and age, what with all this CCTV and border control and whatnot.”

“I suppose so,” said Bertie, not sounding overly concerned. After all, thought Arthur, what was a few stolen bottles compared to the millions now awaiting the young man?

On an upturned barrel in the corner, various exalted vintages of Chateau Lafoute were standing to attention, ready for their debut at tomorrow’s big dinner.

“We took them out first thing when we arrived yesterday,” said Bertie, “but Charles says he’s not sure the sediment will have time to settle. It really should have been done days ago, but of course this was all rather last minute.”

“Charles? Charles Resnick?” said Arthur. Trust that man to waste no time insinuating himself into the company of the new master of Bourne Hall.

“Oh yes, this was all his doing,” said Bertie, with cheery enthusiasm. “Well, him and Ariane. There was meant to be a big gala dinner in London tomorrow, hosted by the Wine Bureau of Burgundy. But there was an awful fire at the venue, and they had to postpone to next week. So what with all these big-name wine writers in town, Ariane had the idea—or was it Charles, I don’t quite remember—anyway, we thought, why don’t we have them all up to the Hall for the biggest ever tasting of Chateau Lafoute?”

“Wine, it is meant to be drunk,” said Chef Maurice, nodding.

“Right. That’s just what Charles said.”

No doubt he would, thought Arthur, if it meant he got to be one of those doing the drinking.

“Ariane’s very excited. She says she’s never even tasted some of these vintages before.”

Arthur glanced towards the magnum collection in the glass display case. There were now several more empty plinths, and on the barrel table, he saw that the ’28, ’61 and ’66 magnums of Chateau Lafoute had joined their smaller brethren in anticipation of tomorrow’s unveiling.

Chef Maurice was now pottering around the cellar, looking high and low at the bottles all around him. “The stickers!” he said, waving a hand at the shelves. “The yellow stickers. They are all gone!”

“Stickers?” said Bertie.

“There were many bottles marked with the little yellow stickers,” said Chef Maurice, his nose now pressed up against the glass of the magnum collection. “Perhaps one in twenty, or one in ten, even, had the mark. See there”—he pointed to a sticky smudge on the edge of a ’29 Cheval Blanc—“you can see it has been removed.”

“Maybe Gilles took them off, before he left,” suggested Arthur.

“
Oui
, perhaps. But why?”

“Maybe he was marking out the ones worth taking?”

“
Non
,
non
, the stickers, they were here on the night of Sir William’s murder. It is impossible that Sir William would not notice. So they must have been put on the bottles with his consent. Perhaps even put by him. Which— Aha! Yes, this fits very well . . . ”

Chef Maurice continued pacing up and down, a glazed look across his face, as if concentrating on some inner vista of thought.

Arthur shrugged, and turned to Bertie. “So, master of Bourne Hall, eh? Must have come as quite a shock. Though, you must have had some inkling . . . ?”

Arthur carefully watched Bertie’s face, but the young man showed every sign of flustered embarrassment. “Oh no, I didn’t have the slightest idea. I mean, looking back, perhaps I should have—I mean, Uncle William did used to say the odd thing or two, usually after he’d been at the Port, about how I was like the son he’d never had, that kind of thing. But I never thought . . . He was awfully keen on the idea of us young people making our own way in the world, not waiting for handouts and all that. And he had family still, at least, his brother’s family . . . ”

“Mmm, I imagine Lady Margaret had some words to say on that matter.”

“She keeps ringing up. I’ve had to tell Mrs Bates to tell her we’re out,” said Bertie, looking scandalised at having descended to such a level of subterfuge.

“And how’s Ariane taking it all? I don’t suppose she had any idea about Sir William’s plans? It’s funny how women intuit these things, sometimes . . . ”