Free Murder in The Smokehouse: (Auguste Didier Mystery 7) by Amy Myers Page B

fortune if he stored it in Fort Knox. Someday he’d come back, that’s what Father always said.’
    ‘But your parents would have recognised him.’
    ‘Who’s to say they didn’t?’ Alfred winked.
    ‘Why am I accompanied everywhere like an English cod by parsley sauce?’ Auguste demanded of his wife as she leant over the small stone bridge to admire the swift-flowing Malham beck. His voice rose sharply, tothe great interest of two urchins playing with an iron hoop, and several worthies of Malham village on their way to the Buck Inn. Only with Tatiana in view had he shaken off the obnoxious Alfred.
    ‘They like you, Auguste. And why not? So do I,’ his wife told him fondly, putting her arm round him.
    He was not to be so easily beguiled. After all, she had shown few signs of liking him earlier that day. ‘It is more than that. I think it is to do with your visit to the smokehouse.’
    She sighed. ‘Tell me, chéri, again. Do you think I am a murderer?’
    ‘
Non
!’
    ‘Do you think I have a lover?’
    ‘
Non
!’
    ‘And if I had an assignation, would I have it in the smokehouse when His Majesty is nearby?
And
my husband?’
    ‘
Non
.’
    ‘Then let us forget this foolishness.’
    ‘I cannot,’ he said sadly.
    ‘Detection is in your blood, is it not? You hear the hunting horn and feel you must follow the chase.’
    Did he? Surely only in cooking, not detection? Cooking was a majestic exploration of uncharted seas in which ingredients fitted together by an artist formed a perfect recipe. Wasn’t detection like that too? Its ingredients were culled from many quarters; would they fit, or would they remain obstinately refusing to combine like tomato in risotto, sage with lamb. Yet when detective flavours married, when instinct told him the last piece of the puzzle was safely slotted home, that was like cooking. And certainly in the back of his mind some memory of an article he had read was stirring . . .
    ‘Perhaps just a little,’ he admitted, won over.
    ‘Do you think the corpse was murdered?’
    ‘I am afraid it is possible.
Chérie
, did you move the body? I must know before I see Egbert.’
    ‘Alexander did. I agreed.’
    ‘You lied to me.’ His heart sank.
    ‘It was necessary.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘I can only tell you that it has nothing to do with that poor man in the smokehouse.’
    ‘He was a stranger to you?’
    ‘Yes.’
    He wanted to sing, to shout in relief. ‘And were the lights on the path lit when you went there?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘And in the smokehouse?’
    ‘No. We lit them.’
    ‘Was the door locked?’
    ‘No. Though we had taken the spare key from the kitchen, of course. They have one in order to stock up the wine supply and refreshments,’ she explained.
    Was there a slight pause before she answered? A shade too much helpful explanation? Of course not. Relief bathed him with its soothing powers. He told her so.
    ‘Good. Now I wish to purchase potted trout. I am told it is good here. And it is useful. Mr Marx says that nothing is worthwhile unless it is useful.’
    ‘I’m relieved Mr Marx considers food useful,’ Auguste remarked laughing.
    ‘I am not sure he would approve of the
truffles
that accompanied the mutton chops you served on Saturday evening.’
    Auguste leapt on this philosophical point, perhaps in order to forget that the clouds were not completely lifted between himself and Tatiana. In marriage he had embarked upon a voyage of discovery, duringwhich hidden rocks might yet tear the craft from underneath.
    He was beginning to know this road rather well, Auguste thought later that afternoon as the carriage jolted its way across Scosthrop Moor, past fells on which bears and rhinoceros had once grazed in prehistoric times, and on down into Settle once more. The ride was conducive to quiet contemplation of facts. Why, for instance, was Priscilla Tabor quite so vehement that it was a suicide? He played with the idea of one of the Tabors as a murderer, and dismissed